Week 7 assignment

 

In this Assignment, you will take the first steps toward putting your interview guide into action. Invite at least five potential participants to participate in your study using the criteria stated in the document, “IRB Requirements for Selecting Participants.” To invite them, you can modify the sample invitation, but use the Informed Consent statement verbatim. These documents are located in the Learning Resources. You can approach friends, family, colleagues, or anyone else as long as they meet the IRB criteria. If you invite five, it is likely that two of them will be able to participate.

By Day 7

• Prepare your participant invitation (refer to the example in this week’s Learning Resources).
• Select from among your friends, colleagues, and other people you know at least five potential participants, as long as they meet the IRB criteria.
• Copy and paste the content of your five e-mails to one Word document, and submit this document to the Assignment submission area.
• Send your invitations to your prospective participants, via e-mail, with a CC to your Instructor.
• Confirm two participants and send those individuals the IRB Consent Form.

Hello,

I hope this note finds you well.

As you know, I am in the Walden PhD program. As part of my coursework, I’m practicing the skills I need to develop and conduct qualitative research interviews. I’m seeking friends and family members that could participate as “interviewees” for one of my course assignments. Would you be interested in assisting?

The practice will include completing an Informed Consent statement (I’ll e-mail this to you); and allowing me to [e-mail you a list of questions/interview by phone or in person]. The whole process should take no more than 90 minutes of your time.

Please let me know if you would like to participate. The course has deadlines, so we’ll need to begin the process by [date], and finish the interview by [date].

You can contact me by phone [your number], e-mail [your Walden e-mail address] if you have any questions.

Email-format Consent Form for Practice Interview (edits not permitted)

To be emailed to the invited interviewee:

You are invited to take part in an interview for a research course that I am completing as part of my doctoral program. The purpose of the interview is to help me
hone my interviewing and data analysis skills.

Interview Procedures:

I am requesting that you permit me to conduct an audio-recorded interview for about minutes. Transcriptions of interviews will be analyzed as part of my
course. Copies of your interview recording and transcript are available from me upon request.

Voluntary Nature of the Interview:

This interview is voluntary. If you decide to take part now, you can still change your mind later.

Risks and Benefits of Being Interviewed:

Being in this interview would not pose any risks beyond those of typical daily life. There is no benefit to you.

Privacy:

Interview recordings and full transcripts will be shared with each interviewee, upon request. Transcripts with identifiers redacted will be shared with my university
faculty along with my analysis. The interview recording and transcript will be destroyed as soon as I have completed my course.

Contacts and Questions:

If you want to talk privately about your rights as an interviewee, you can call Dr. Leilani Endicott. She is the Walden University representative who can discuss this
with you. Her phone number is 612-312-1210.

Please share any questions or concerns you might have at this time. If you agree to be interviewed as described above, please reply to this email with the words,
“I consent.”

1

Office of Research and Compliance: IRB Requirements for Selecting Participants

Please note the following conditions for all COURSE-BASED data collection projects:

• Students may only interview adult family members or acquaintances. No strangers may be recruited for this training activity.

• Students may not seek out protected populations such as children, prisoners, residents of any facility, or mentally/emotionally disabled individuals for this
project unless they have obtained IRB approval using the standard full review process via forms found at the university’s IRB website (which takes a
minimum of 6 weeks). Note that this does NOT mean the student should ask the interviewee if s/he has a disability. The policy is simply that students may
not seek out protected populations for this training exercise. If a student wishes to practice an interview that is designed for a people in a protected class
(i.e., children), then the student will need to ask an adult friend to roleplay the part of the participant.

• Students are required to store their project data in electronic format (e.g., Word, Excel, SPSS, Nvivo, etc.) for the duration of their course and then must
dispose of the data at the time final grades are assigned.

• Students must de-identify the data as soon as is realistically possible to minimize risk of inappropriate disclosure of personal information. De-identification

consists of removing all direct identifiers such as names, addresses, or telephone numbers from the raw data and database. Students must take
precautions to not disclose to anyone else (including the instructor) any part of the data that is linkable to a participant’s identity.

• Payments, compensation, reimbursement, free services, or extra credit or other gifts may NOT be preferentially given to the project participants. This is to
ensure voluntary participation.

• Interview data generated by this training assignment is not eligible for inclusion in the dissertation or any other study.

1

Interview Guide Worksheet

1. Restate the RQ, and define the phenomenon of interest.

2. Review your literature on the phenomena of interest.

• Identify recurring patterns, conflicting ideas, or unique findings

• Choose 3 to 5 of these as potential topics for developing questions

• Identify keywords and phrases that will form the basis of your

questions.

3. Review your theoretical/conceptual framework

• Identify 3 to 5 concepts or assumptions that are fundamental

to the framework

• Identify keywords and phrases that will form the basis of your
questions.

4. Review methodological sources of your approach.

• What are the structural or key points that need to be included

in the interview guide so that it is consistent with the

approach?

5. Arrange the literature topics, framework concepts and methodological
points into beginning, middle and end of interview.

6. Modify each concept so that it becomes an open-ended question. Use
these guidelines as well as Patton’s examples (Chapter 7) to make sure the
phenomenon of interest is thoroughly investigated.

• Make every question open-ended.

• Make every question neutral. Avoid leading questions, and avoid using

words that direct how the participant should answer.

• Ask only one question at a time.

• Make sure that the content of the question is consistent with

the participant’s level of education and culture.

7. For each question you ask, follow up with one or more of the following
probes (probing questions encourage the participant to describe specific
events and examples of the phenomena).

• Can you give me a specific example of …?

• Tell me about a typical day when [the phenomenon] happens to you?

• What did that experience mean to you?

8. Formulate an introduction to the interview. Start with an accessible, answer-
able question.

• Begin the interview with a “warm-up” question—something that the

respondent can answer easily and at some length (though not too

long). Make sure the question pertains to the phenomenon of interest,

and will put you and the participant more at ease with one another to

make the rest of the interview flow more smoothly.

9. Review the concepts questions, and consider which concepts will be hard to
talk about? Embarrassing? Move these concepts towards the middle of the
interview.

10. Consider how you want to close the interview (“Is there anything else you’d
like to share with me before we finish this interview?”). What can you say that
will let the participant know they were “heard” and respected?

11. What do you need to communicate to the participant to “debrief”? This
typically includes (1) how you will get in touch in order to have the participant
verify the accuracy of the interview; and (2) what you will share with the
participant once the study is completed.

1