Review: Interviews and the Philosophy of Qualitative Research

Author(s): Patrick Dilley

Review by: Patrick Dilley
Source: The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 75, No. 1, Special Issue: Questions of Research and
Methodology (Jan. - Feb., 2004), pp. 127-132
Published by: Ohio State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3838692
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Review Essay
Interviewsandthe Philosophyof QualitativeResearch
Interviewingas QualitativeResearch: A Guidefor
Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences,

by IrvingSeidman(2nded.). New York:Teachers

CollegePress,1998.
InterViews:An Introductionto QualitativeResearch
Interviewing,by SteinarKvale.ThousandOaks,CA: Sage, 1996.
Qualitative Interviewing:TheArt of Hearing Data,

by HerbertJ. RubinandIreneS. Rubin.

ThousandOaks,CA: Sage, 1995.
PATRICKDILLEY,SouthernIllinoisUniversity

Interviewingis key to manyformsof qualitativeeducationalresearch;

we interviewrespondentsfor oralhistories,life histories,ethnographies,
andcase studies(see Tierney& Dilley, 2002, for an overviewof interviewingin education).Despitethe primacyof verbaldatain qualitative
research,basicintroductions
to qualitativeresearch(includingGlesne&
Peshkin,1992;Merriam,1998;andRossman& Rallis, 1998) and;'how
to" guides for conductingqualitativeprojects(such as Goodall,2000)
includeonly sectionson interviewing.Onlywithinthe pastdecadehave
book-lengthexplorationsof interviewingbeenproducedfor an audience
of educationalresearchers(as opposedto, say,anthropologists
or sociologists).Of those,threespecificallyacknowledgethephilosophicalfoundationsof interviewmethodologies.Eachexamines,in complementary

The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 75, No. 1 (January/February2004)

Copyright (C)2004 by The Ohio State University

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128 The Journal of Higher Education

ways, the relationships between philosophy and protocol, epistemology

and research,words and meanings.
Irving Seidman's Interviewing as Qualitative Research (1998) is
grounded in the phenomenological tradition of three distinct, thematic
interviews designed to question meanings of experience. I find his work
is a good starting point for training new researchers, not because the
structureof phenomenological interviewing is betterthan other forms of
qualitativeinterviewing, but because Seidman ties the core of phenomenology to the qualitativephilosophy. "Interviewing,"Seidman writes,
providesaccess to the contextof people'sbehaviorandtherebyprovidesa
way for researchersto understand
the meaningof thatbehavior.A basic assumptionin in-depthinterviewingresearchis thatthe meaningpeoplemake
of theirexperienceaffectsthe way theycarryout thatexperience.... Interviewingallowsus to put behaviorin contextandprovidesaccess to understandingtheiraction.(1998, p. 4)
Meaning is not "just the facts," but ratherthe understandingsone has
that are specific to the individual (what was said) yet transcendentof the
specific (what is the relation between what was said, how it was said,
what the listener was attemptingto ask or hear, what the speakerwas attempting to convey or say). Just as language signifies and is constituted
by specifics and abstracts, so too does qualitative research and interviewing in particular.There are skills physical, social, mental, communicative that embody the act of interviewing, but those alone will
not determine answers to research questions. For such determinations,
budding researchersmust learn the skill of comprehension,the complex
aptitude and competence of reflection and representation which are
perhaps ultimately unteachable by any method than trial and error.As
Seidman states,
Researchersmustask themselveswhattheyhavelearnedfromdoingthe interviews,studyingthe transcripts,
markingandlabelingthem,craftingproElles,and organizingcategoriesof excerpts.Whatconnectivethreadsare
thereamongthe experiencesof the participants
they interviewed?How do
they understandand explainthese connections?Whatdo they understand
now thatthey did not understandbeforethey beganthe interviews?What
surpriseshave therebeen?Whatconfirmationsof previousinstincts?How
havetheirinterviewsbeen consistentwiththe literature?
Howinconsistent?
Howhavetheygonebeyond?(Seidman,1998,pp. 110-111)
Those are questions for the interviewer, a continuing conversation
with one's self about the natureof how we have learned what we know.
Interviews should allow us to investigate, in critical ways, our respondents' comprehensions of their experiences and beliefs as well as our
own. Of course, the structureof the interview event shapes the meanings

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Review Essay

129

made (and conveyed) by both the interviewer and the respondent. Seidman emphasizes structuringinterview projects and protocols in particular ways to develop this understanding,but appears open to the notion
that different questions, which would requiredifferent ways of knowing
or comprehending,would require different ways of asking questions. I
concur with Seidman's approachto ensuring such efforts are at the heart
of interview projects and analyses, not a check-and-balanceadditive.
Whatare neededarenot formulaicapproachesto enhancingeithervalidity
of andrespectforthe issuesthatunderbutunderstanding
or trustworthiness
lie thoseterms.We mustgrapplewith them,doingourbest to increaseour
ways of knowingand of avoidingignorance,realizingthatour effortsare
quitesmallin the largerscaleof things.(Seidman,1998,p. 20)
Where Seidmanconcentratesupon the structureof the interview event
and researchproject, HerbertJ. Rubin and Irene S. Rubin, in Qualitative
Interviewing (1995), emphasize a different set of necessary skills in
qualitative interviewing: "the art of hearing data."The Rubins reiterate
interviewing's epistemological origins: "Qualitative interviewing is a
way of finding out what others feel and think about their worlds.
Through qualitative interviews you can understandexperiences and reconstruct events in which you did not participate" (Rubin & Rubin,
1995, p. 1). They, too, place an emphasis upon comprehendingand conveying understandingsof the researchedand the researcher.
The Rubins base their recommendations including practical strategies in a qualitativeresearchphilosophy that meshes nicely with Seidman's. Moving beyond the craft of structuringinterviews, Rubin and
Rubin propose that making sense of interview data requires a paradigm
of learning and understandingthat is far from positivistic: "Qualitative
interviewing is more than a set of skills, it is also a philosophy, an approach to learning"(Rubin & Rubin, 1995, p. 2).
Rubin and Rubin outline three components of what they term a qualitative "philosophy,an approachto learning" (1995, p. 2): first, "understanding is achieved by encouraging people to describe their worlds in
their own terms;"second, "interviewinginvolves a relationshipbetween
the interviewer and the interviewee that imposes obligations on both
sides;" and finally, "the philosophy helps define what is interesting and
what is ethical [as well as to] provide standardsto judge the quality of
the research,the humanityof the interviewing relationship,and the completeness and accuracy of the write-up"(Rubin & Rubin, 1995, p. 2). I
find Qaalatative Intervaewangan informative, needed, philosophically
grounded text that clearly conveys the complexities of how qualitative
senses or meanings are made from particulardata of words and deeds.

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130 The Journal of Higher Education

Such a philosophy of conducting and producing qualitative research

might match Seidman's (and probably most other qualitative researchers'), but it is far from what most social scientists even, I think,
from what most educational researchers-think of as "scientiElc."(See
ElizabethAdams St. Pierre [2002] for a critique of what counts as scientific knowledge in an age of federally legislated research.) Rather than
view this as a deficit, Rubin and Rubin contend that applying positivistic
values and goals upon qualitativeresearchis an improperimposition.
Qualitativeresearchis notlookingforprinciplesthataretrueall thetimeand
in all conditions,like laws of physics;rather,the goal is understanding
of
specificcircumstances,how and why thingsactuallyhappenin a complex
world.Knowledgein qualitativeinterviewingis situationalandconditional.
(Rubin& Rubin,1995,pp. 38-39)
Comprehension and understanding key components of qualitative
research are conditional, philosophical considerations that are necessarily individualistic. Steinar Kvale, in InterViews(1996), states more
plainly than either Seidman or the Rubins that qualitativeresearchinterviewing is not formulaic, not a process that will generate or guarantee
replicable results or investigations among any group of researchers."Interviewing is a craft:It does not follow content- and context-free rules of
method, but rests on the judgments of a qualified researcher"(Kvale,
1996, p. 105). Kvale articulatesthe most detailed analysis of the kinds of
interviews, the types of interview questions, the structuresof analysis,
and the elements of the social constructionof validity within qualitative
research.Kvale offers six steps of analysis for making meaning: collecting the subjects' descriptions; allowing for the subjects' self-discovery;
condensing and interpretingthe interview event by the interviewer;interpretingthe transcribedinterview by the interviewer;conducting follow-up interviews; and observing if interviewees begin to aet differently
from the insights of being involved in the research (Kvale, 1996, pp.
189-190).
Ultimately, however, the act of crafting meaning from an interview
and constructing a product to convey that meaning to particularaudiences, deEleshomogeny: "Thereare no standardmethods, no via regia,
to arriveat essential meanings and deeper implications of what is said in
an interview"(Kvale, 1996, p. 180), and, consequently, what happens in
an interview event transcendsprotocol or design. Further,the nature of
interview analysis and reporting is more than transcribing what happened when words were spoken:
Theresearchergoes beyondwhatis directlysaidto workout structuresand
relationsof meaningnot immediatelyapparentin a text.Thisrequiresa cer-

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Review Essay

131

tain distancefromwhatis said, which is achievedby a methodologicalor

theoreticalstance,recontextualizingwhat is said in a specific conceptual
context.(Kvale,1996,p. 201)
The connection between philosophy and epistemology in qualitative
research is more fully explored in InterViews than in Interviewing as
Qualitative Research or Qualitative Interviewing. Along with this
methodological framework, Kvale provides extensive summations and
examples of the epistemological issues and questions that we must ask in
both conducting and evaluatingqualitativeresearch.And yet he proffers
an explicit, structured,fairly formalheuristicfor conductinginterviewresearch. Consequently,I Elndthis book more useful in advanced instruction: as a capstone priorto undertakinga major (or even pilot) study,but
not in its entiretyas an introductionto the topic of interviewing.
Despite this formality or perhapsbecause of it Kvale offers words
to strike terrorinto the hearts of quantitativeresearchers(and call Seidman's phenomenological structureinto question): "Thereis no common
procedurefor interview research. Interview research . . . if well carried
out, can become an art" (Kvale, 1996, p. 13). If Seidman's approach
centers on the method of data collection and the Rubins' upon the
method of data analysis, Kvale's intent is to describe the interview
process as a complete researchmini-paradigm,contained within a philosophical framework that resembles in form scientific investigations.
Kvale includes many lists of forms of activity and analysis, couched in
the language of social science; but contraryto this formal, academic narrative structurefor InterViews,Kvale clearly advocates for rigorous yet
non-universalapproachesto learning and conducting interview research.
In orderto developthe qualitativeinterviewas a formof researchit is necessaryto go beyondthe dichotomyof all methodversusno method.I will disapproachthatbypassesthis oppositionof rigidformalcuss a craftsmanlike
hereincludesa shiftfrommethodto
Craftsmanship
ism or naivespontaneity.
relatingscienceto art,a skillmodelof transition
thepersonof theresearcher,
fromnovice to expert,andthe learningof researchthroughapprenticeship.
(Kvale,1996,p. 105)
This, too, is a philosophical standpoint, not a methodological one.
Alongside this standpointis an epistemological position, for interviewers cannot divorce our ways of knowing from our ways of trying to
know, our literal questioning. We-and our students need to understand the natureof why we interview as well as the mechanics of how to
interview. Seidman, the Rubins and Kvale each add a component for beginning qualitative researchers to understandthe principles as well as
the methods of interviewing. Individually, Seidman, the Rubins and

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132 TheJournalof HigherEducation

Kvale provideinstructionfor how to conceptualize,conductand produce interviewresearchprojects;collectively,the threeworksoffer insightintohow theperhapsmostdominantqualitativeresearchmethodis

philosophicalratherthaninstrumental
in nature.
References
Glesne, C., & Peshkin, A. (1992). Becomingqualitativeresearchers:
An introduction.
White Plains, NY: Longman.
Goodall, H. L., Jr. (2000). Writingthe new ethnography.
Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira
Press.
Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitativeresearchand case studyapplicationsin education.
San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.
Rossman, G. B., & Rallis, S. F. (1998). Learningin thefield:An introduction
to qualitativeresearch.ThousandOaks, CA: Sage.
St. Pierre, E. A. (2002). "Science" rejects postmodernism. EducationalResearcher,
31(8), 25-27.
Tierney,W. G., & Dilley, P. (2002). Interviewing in education. In J. F. Gubrium& J. A.
Holstein (Eds.), Handbookof interviewresearch:Context& methodpp. 453-471).
ThousandOaks, CA: Sage.

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