A fool for six minutes?

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says "One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever". Since the duration of my interview was six minutes, should I focus on how many mistakes or how foolish I might have felt interviewing my friend or the valuable information and insight that was gained from those six minutes of questioning? :)
After conducting my practice interview for the class assignment, several things struck me. To start, I have been completely understimating both the complexity of the process and the great source of information that an interview can be as a way to develop areas to research! Second, it was extremely difficult for me to interview a teacher at my school, due in large part to my crazy schedule of responsibilities at the school, and demads that were occuring at the time of this assignment (i.e. report cards, writing folders being submitted to coordinators, etc). Therefore, I interviewed a friend of mine who works in a local public school disrtict and the elementary school she works at is a designated "school of excellence". We conducted the interview over the phone via skype and I recorded it. I am not exactly sure that this is the best technique; however, I did gather some very interesting and helpful information from her.
What I noticed about myself as the interviewer is the role that my tone plays in gathering information. Since this was an interview with a friend, I had a friendlier tone that I might have had with a teacher at my school . This in fact, was a good thing in the case of this assignment. The teacher that I interviewed was very candid about sharing her frustration with the lack of professional development she is receiving due to budget cuts at her school. Listening to the tape, where her first repsonse starts with "To be honest with you....", makes me think that she might not have answered the questions the same way if she were being interviewed by someone else at her school. This will be a VERY important factor for me to consider as I conduct the interview as a part of my case study. The teacher I will be interviewing will be a member of my school faculty. I will want to make sure that I keep this friendly tone.
Another important area that strikes me as I reflect on this experience is the important role of the interivew protocol. As we developed our questions, we as a think tank learned the important distinction between research questions and interview questions, and the need to, as we drill into our students' heads when teaching them to write, consider your audience. We chose to ask four -five more open ended questions and to then analyze the transcript and code the data. With the questions that we devised, and in a six minute interview, several themes emerged, and tons of possibilities for future areas to research in professinal development became clear. These will be discussed in class as we meet to analzye our transcripts collectively.
Finally, my ability to ask good "probes" to clarify language in the question or to clarify the intended meaning of the teacher was definitely necessary. This became apparent to me, alebeit subconsciously, as the interview progressed. I think that too many times, answers are left for interperation and if the researchers is not cognizant of this fact and attempting to obtain clarity in terms of the subjects intended meaning, it would be easy for this meaning to be somehow altered or misinterpreted. It is, however, a fine line between a good probe and one that leads the interview. To me, the development of this skill seems part art, part science, and part experience.
In the end, it was more than worthwile for me to be "a fool for six minutes". Not only did this interview generate important areas to be investigaged further, but the experience of conducting an interview will help me tremendously as I develop the interview protocol for the particpant in my case study. Stay tuned......



Christy