Methods

Qualitative interview

Qualitative interviewing explores how participants describe experiences and make sense of them. A semistructured interview uses guiding questions while allowing relevant follow-up. An interview is a data-collection method rather than a complete research design: the study also needs a sampling rationale, an analytic approach and a clear account of how interpretations were developed.

How do first-generation students describe their experience of asking for academic help?

How it works

  1. For a synthetic project, clarify the experience being investigated and recruit people who can speak to it. Explain consent, confidentiality and the right to skip questions. Consider how the interviewer’s institutional role could influence what students feel able to disclose, especially if the interviewer teaches or assesses them.
  2. Prepare open questions that invite concrete accounts, such as asking someone to describe a recent occasion when help was needed. Use follow-up prompts to understand the participant’s meaning rather than to secure agreement with an explanation. With permission, preserve an accurate recording or detailed record.
  3. Choose and explain an analytic approach. Read accounts in context, keep a record of interpretive decisions and consider material that challenges the developing account. Explain how researcher assumptions shaped the work. Use quotations carefully as evidence for an interpretation, while protecting the speaker’s identity.

Evidence: (Research Methods in Psychology: Qualitative Research, n.d.); (DeJonckheere & Vaughn, 2019)

Accounts of seeking academic help

Teaching scenario

This is a synthetic interview scenario, not a report of findings. One participant might describe fear of appearing unprepared; another might emphasize inconvenient office hours. These possible accounts illustrate why the interviewer should allow different explanations to emerge. They do not establish that either explanation occurs frequently or that one causes students to avoid help.

This example is constructed for learning. It does not report an observed research result.

What can you conclude?

Develop a contextual understanding of participants’ meanings, identify differences in experience and generate or refine theoretical explanations.

Evidence: (Research Methods in Psychology: Qualitative Research, n.d.); (DeJonckheere & Vaughn, 2019)

Limits and common mistakes

  • Interview accounts are situated and influenced by the interaction; they are not transparent recordings of every past event.
  • A purposive interview sample and interpretive themes do not by themselves estimate population prevalence.

A mistake to catch

Treating a few vivid quotations as a prevalence estimate, or presenting themes without explaining the analytic decisions behind them.

Evidence: (Research Methods in Psychology: Qualitative Research, n.d.); (DeJonckheere & Vaughn, 2019)

Sources and inspection notes

Links checked October 21, 2026. Inspection scope is stated for each source; an access date is not a publication date.

  1. DeJonckheere, M., & Vaughn, L. M. (2019). Semistructured interviewing in primary care research: A balance of relationship and rigour. Family Medicine and Community Health, 7(2), Article e000057. https://doi.org/10.1136/fmch-2018-000057Consulted source

    Qualitative interview: procedure 1 and pitfall; purpose, participant selection, ethics, rapport, reflection and trustworthiness Authors’ abstract and bibliographic record read 21 October 2026. BMJ full text returned 403 and PMC returned a browser challenge. No full-text-only claim used.

  2. Research methods in psychology: Qualitative research. (n.d.). https://opentextbc.ca/researchmethods/chapter/qualitative-research/

    Qualitative interview: summary, procedure 2 and 3, allows and limits; semistructured interviewing and interpretive analysis Open teaching chapter by the textbook authors, read 21 October 2026. Not a primary empirical study.

Keep reading

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020). Psychology 2e. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/2-2-approaches-to-research

Nearest related OpenStax Psychology 2e reading. This is a course connection, not evidence for every specialist detail above.

Specialist reading: Research methods in psychology: Qualitative research. (n.d.). https://opentextbc.ca/researchmethods/chapter/qualitative-research/

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