It is hard to keep your mouth shut

Interviewing pointed out my I's especially my I can talk to anyone I, but then I realized I had to add an I can talk about anything I as I realized just how difficult it is to give over the floor to the interviewee. It is very easy to see how one's biases and one's interest in getting the information one wants that will support the research can get in the way if not checked, or in my case, handcuffed. I realized how difficult it really is to come up with big, broad questions that will allow the interviewee to speak what is on their minds without interrupting, not out of rudeness, but because it is very tempting to step in and ask questions that will lead the person along the path you want. It certainly is not the road not taken. Frost made the choice and stayed there even if he knew he was not ever going to return to the other path. It is very easy to want to act as a road guide and lead the interviewee down the well trod path. I did notice though that the benefit of a well designed broad question can elicit good information. In fact, I noticed that many of the questions I would have asked if my questions were smaller and more direct were answered through allowing the interviewee to speak. What was more difficult was to think of good questions to keep the conversation going when talking stopped. How do you get a person to continue talking without guiding and giving them too much information. I solved this problem by going back to my notes, repeating what the person said, and then asked them to tell me more. For example, our question was How do you feel about PD. When the conversation stopped, rather than asking a pointed question to get more information on a topic I wanted to hear, I simply said, "So you mentioned there was a gap between district driven pd and teacher driven pd" Now, as a teacher, I agreed with that statement, and it would have been easy to say "I agree and why do you think so? But this would have been subjective and leading because the interviewee now would have known my opinion and perhaps continue with an answer to please me. Instead, I simply said, Tell me more about that.

Interviewing was more difficult that imagined. I wanted the conversation to last for about 30 minutes, it lasted 20 and I found it difficult to think of questions that would push the interview longer. I am sure the interviewee could have said more, but as a beginning qualitative researcher, I did not feel I had the skills to facilitate more information in an easy flow. That will have to develop. Perhaps, I will now be able to better tailor my approach in order to fine tune the interviews I will have to conduct with my study. I wonder if anyone else experienced this. Let me know.