Field Interview Help

May 23, 2009 12:21 PM

Great Books And Resources On Doing Field Research Interviews?

I am a PhD candidate (just became ABD on thursday woot!) in political science. My formal training is in quantitative methods (stats), however I am doing nine months of field work (interviews) in Africa in 2010.

I am looking for some great books and resources on doing field interviews properly.

Any suggestions?

posted by chrisalbon to work & money (5 comments total)

I found this book extremely helpful while preparing to do my own research. Despite the seeming narrowness of the title, it takes a broad approach, and I think it would be a good resource for anyone doing field work/interviews.

Oh, and congratulations on becoming ABD!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:20 PM on May 23

Denzin & Lincoln's (2003) Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry and Jennifer Mason's Qualitative Researching have been great resources for me. There's also Bernard's (2002) Structured and semi-structured interviewing and Sampling.
posted by archimago at 1:28 PM on May 23

I read Briggs' Learning How to Ask a long time ago, but I remember it to be worthwhile.
posted by umbú at 6:26 PM on May 23

See if you can get the Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research from a library.
posted by billtron at 11:45 AM on May 24

Some of my favourites:

Learning from strangers (Weiss)
Comprehensive practical guide to interviewing in general

Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound (eds. Bauer and Gaskell)
Good chapters by Gaskell, Flick, and Jovchelovitch on specific interviewing techniques and types

An Introduction to Qualitative Research (Flick)
Sounds basic but actually a lot of good stuff in there, good overview and also recommends further reading

Interviewing is actually kind of fun, if you haven't done any before. Just be very well-prepared for your first few, and then you'll be able to relax and enjoy it once you've got the hang.
posted by danteGideon at 2:40 PM on May 24