Conceptual, holistic, and pragmatic considerations for interviewing research participants

Abstract

Interviews are commonly used as data collection method in many types of studies. Interviewers and researchers may be challenged to take a holistic view of the interviewing process and to acknowledge participants' perspectives and experiences, understand the implications of dialogue between interviewers and participants, guide data collection to address research questions and aims of a study, and ensure that high-quality data is collected for analysis. This article addresses the need to integrate a holistic perspective into data collection and reviews general and specific interviewing considerations, including assessment and conceptualization of potential research vulnerability of participants, factors that may influence the quality of data collected through interviews, interviewing strategies, interview facilitation, and specific strategies to acknowledge a specialized population in terms of vulnerability, dialogue, power, and study rigor. Data and exemplars from a grounded theory study of mothers of medically fragile infants are used to illustrate some of the challenges inherent in the use of interviews for data collection.