The Interview
Select your subjects (the people you will interview). You may choose yourself as one of the people to interview. Next, decide what approach you will use. The approach is simply the difference between the subjects. One example of an approach is to use an historical approach by choosing two subjects who have a large difference in age. In this case, you might want to interview yourself and your mother or father about child rearing practices then and now. Another approach you might want to consider is a cross-cultural approach. For example, you could interview someone who gave birth in the United States and someone who gave birth in another country. You may choose any approach of interest to you.
Before you interview the subjects, make a prediction regarding how you think they will respond in the interview. This prediction is your hypothesis. For example, in an interview on the topic of parenting styles, a student may predict that one subject (interviewee) uses the authoritative approach and the other subject (interviewee) uses the permissive approach. The hypothesis is based upon your research about the topic and how it might apply to people you interview. At the end of the interviews, you may discover that you were totally wrong, but that’s okay because all research is what we call “trial and error learning.” We learn even from our mistaken ideas.
Interview Questions
Select at least 6 interview questions, making them as unbiased as possible. Use the same six interview questions for both interviews. Make your questions open-ended so that you get more than “yes” or “no” answers. Explain to the subjects that all information given is confidential.
Write your questions out and record the session by taking thorough notes. If the subjects’ answers are too brief, try saying, “Tell me more about ……” Remember, you are interested in your subject’s life and ideas. Do not involve yourself in a conversation, offer advice, make judgments, or talk about your own experiences during the interview, except as a way of encouraging your subject to talk about the subject matter.
Your interview questions need to be designed to help you to find out if your hypothesis was accurate (or not). For example, imagine that you interviewed a person who struggled with obesity as a child and another person who had anorexia as an adolescent. Let’s say that you predicted (hypothesized) that depression and parents who try to control children’s intake of food were related variables. Then, you might ask the following questions to discover how accurate you were with your hypothesis. (You may use a similar format).
What are the advantages and disadvantages of having parents or a parent who are interested in promoting their children’s healthy weight/lifestyle?
If you had the opportunity to promote healthy weight/lifestyle for children how would you market that idea?
What kinds of physical activities would you like to see children take part in growing up?
Is there a particular nutritional philosophy that you are aligned with or support? (vegan, vegetarian, paleo, etc.)
Do you believe that eating disorders and obesity are preventable? Please explain.
Do you think that there is a link between eating disorders and depression? Between obesity and depression?
