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InterViews
Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing

Third Edition


April 2014 | 424 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
The Third Edition of Brinkmann and Kvale’s InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing, offers readers comprehensive and practical insight into the many factors that contribute to successful interviews. The book invites readers on a journey through the landscape of interview research, providing the “hows” and “whys” of research interviewing, and outlines paths for students to follow on the way to research goals. Thoroughly updated to account for all recent developments in qualitative interviewing, the New Edition expands its focus on the practical, epistemological, and ethical issues involved in interviewing, while maintaining the fluid and logical structure it has become known for throughout the text.

 
List of Boxes, Figures, and Tables
 
Preface to the Third Edition
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Author
 
Introduction
 
1. Introduction to Interview Research
Conversation as Research

 
Three Interview Sequences

 
Interview Research in History and in the Social Sciences

 
The Interview Society

 
Methodological and Ethical Issues in Research Interviewing

 
Overview of the Book

 
Interviewing as a Craft

 
Interviewing as a Social Production of Knowledge

 
Interviewing as a Social Practice

 
Part I: Conceptualizing the Research Interview

 
Part II: Seven Stages of Research Interviewing

 
Concluding Perspectives

 
 
PART I. Conceptualizing the Research Interview
 
2. Characterizing Qualitative Research Interviews
A Qualitative Research Interview on Learning

 
Phenomenology and the Mode of Understanding in a Qualitative Research Interview

 
Power Asymmetry in Qualitative Research Interviews

 
Philosophical Dialogues, Therapeutic Conversations, and Research Interviews

 
Therapeutic Interviews and Research Interviews

 
Qualitative Interviews as Research Instruments and Social Practices

 
 
3. Epistemological Issues of Interviewing
The Interviewer as a Miner or as a Traveler

 
Interviews in a Postmodern Age

 
Seven Features of Interview Knowledge

 
Knowledge and Interviews in a Positivist Conception

 
A Rehabilitation of Classical Positivism?

 
Methodological Positivism

 
Qualitative Interviewing Between Method and Craft

 
Research Interviewing: Method or Personal Skills

 
The Craft of Research Interviewing

 
Learning the Craft of Research Interviewing

 
 
4. Ethical Issues of Interviewing
Interviewing as a Moral Inquiry

 
Ethical Issues Throughout an Interview Inquiry

 
Ethical Positions: Rules and Procedures or Personal Virtues?

 
Ethical Guidelines

 
Informed Consent

 
Confidentiality

 
Consequences

 
The Role of the Researcher

 
Learning Ethical Research Behavior

 
 
5. The Qualitative Research Interview as Context
Interviewers and Interviewees

 
The Interviewer

 
The Interviewee

 
Bodies and Nonhumans

 
Nonhumans and Surroundings

 
 
PART II. Seven Stages of an Interview Investigation
 
6. Thematizing and Designing an Interview Study
Seven Stages of an Interview Inquiry

 
Thematizing an Interview Study

 
Designing an Interview Study

 
Mixed Methods

 
 
7. Conducting an Interview
A Class Interview About Grades

 
Setting the Interview Stage

 
Scripting the Interview

 
Interviewer Questions

 
The Art of Second Questions

 
 
8. Interview Variations
Interview Subjects

 
Interviewing Subjects Across Cultures

 
Interviews With Children

 
Interviews With Elites

 
Interview Forms

 
Computer-Assisted Interviews

 
Focus Group Interviews

 
Factual Interviews

 
Conceptual Interviews

 
Narrative Interviews

 
Discursive Interviews

 
Confrontational Interviews

 
 
9. Interview Quality
Hamlet’s Interview

 
Interview Quality

 
The Interview Subject

 
Interviewer Qualifications

 
Standard Objections to the Quality of Interview Research

 
Leading Questions

 
 
10. Transcribing Interviews
Oral and Written Language

 
Recording Interviews

 
Transcribing Interviews

 
Transcription Reliability, Validity, and Ethics

 
 
11. Preparing for Interview Analysis
The 1,000-Page Question

 
A Method of Analyzing the Question?

 
Steps and Modes of Interview Analysis

 
Computer Tools for Interview Analysis

 
Coding

 
 
12. Interview Analyses Focusing on Meaning
Meaning Condensation

 
Meaning Interpretation

 
The Issue of Multiple Interpretations

 
Hermeneutical Interpretation of Meaning

 
The Primacy of the Question in Interpretation

 
Analytic Questions Posed to an Interview Text

 
The Quest for the “Real Meaning”

 
 
13. Interview Analyses Focusing on Language
Linguistic Analysis

 
Conversation Analysis

 
Narrative Analysis

 
Discourse Analysis

 
Deconstruction

 
 
14. Eclectic and Theoretical Analyses of Interviews
Interview Analysis as Bricolage

 
Interview Analysis as Theoretical Reading

 
 
15. The Social Construction of Validity
Objectivity of Interview Knowledge

 
Reliability and Validity of Interview Knowledge

 
Validity as Quality of Craftsmanship

 
Communicative Validity

 
Pragmatic Validity

 
Generalizing From Interview Studies

 
 
16. Reporting Interview Knowledge
Contrasting Audiences for Interview Reports

 
Boring Interview Reports

 
Ethics of Reporting

 
Investigating With the Final Report in Mind

 
Standard Reports and Ways of Enhancing Them

 
Method

 
Results

 
Enriching Interview Reports

 
Journalistic Interviews

 
Dialogues

 
Therapeutic Case Histories

 
Narratives

 
Metaphors

 
Visualizing

 
Collage

 
Publishing Qualitative Research

 
 
17. Conversations about Interviews
Critiques of the Quality of Interview Knowledge

 
Developing the Craft of Research Interviewing

 
An Epistemology of Interview Knowledge

 
The Object Determines the Method

 
The Social Science Dogma of Quantification

 
Research Interviewing as Social Practice

 
Research Interviewing in a Social Context

 
Interview Ethics in a Social Context

 
 
Appendix: Learning Tasks
 
Glossary
 
References
 
Index

“I greatly value [this book] because [it] articulates the philosophical and methodological approach to validity in qualitative interview research like no other text . . . We consider it our qualitative interview method bible.”

Jean Richey, University of Alaska Fairbanks

“The text is well organized and I am always amazed that Kvale and Brinkmann do have an answer to anything that has to do with interviewing.”

Astrid Eich-Krohm, Southern CT State University

“Kvale and Brinkman’s text is well organized, clearly written, and introduces readers to the world of qualitative interview research. The authors guide readers thinking conceptually as well as practically to design and implement interview studies with clearly articulated concepts and discussions . . . The book has good, in-depth coverage with the kind of theoretical grounding we emphasize in our qualitative research program.”

Kathleen deMarrais, University of Georgia

“The text is well written and the guidelines provided are easy to use. This book is of immense value to researchers and academics, as well as to students. [It] provides practical insight into the interview process [and] provides rich information on the planning, executing and analysis of interviews.”

Dr. Asma Rauf, Essex Business School, University of Essex, Essex, UK

“The text is beautifully organized.  The third edition builds upon the strengths of the first two, in which the authors balance the apparent paradox between learning interviewing as a “craft” . . . and learning from a textbook . . . There are no comparable books to this one! In the preface Brinkman writes, ‘I hope to have struck a balance between a respect for well proven practices of the craft of interviewing on the one hand and innovations, and provocations even, on the other.’  He has.” 

Jon Wergin, Antioch University

“This text provides a deep dive on qualitative interviewing, missing from many works on qualitative research. [It] is useful in that it situates interviews paradigmatically while also providing an historical treatment of interviews across disciplines. The text is well organized and approachable for novices and experts seeking richer understandings of interviewing.”

Jeannine Dingus-Eason, St. John Fisher College

An excellent book. However, it's just a bit too detailed for my course in Writing and Evaluating Survey Questions. If I was teaching a general social science research methods class, I might adopt.

Dr Lee Hargraves
Sociology Dept, University Of Massachusetts-Boston
August 30, 2023

Very useful if the intended approach is aimed toward the life-history/biographical style. Unfortunately this does not align with the interview style being used in the courses that I am currently instructing.

Mr Lukas Kane Skulmoski
Vocational Education , Okanagan College-Kelowna
November 16, 2015

Excellent text for instruction in interviewing for qualitative research.

Dr Norma Hedin
School of Leadership, Dallas Baptist University
March 30, 2016

Useful text for already existing applied projects.

Ms Libby Smith
Psychology Dept, University Of Wisconsin-Stout
October 19, 2015
Key features

NEW TO THIS EDITION:

  • Updated with a new chapter that covers the context of qualitative research interviewing
  • New For and Against boxes throughout to highlight the dilemmas and choices that enable readers to make informed choices about theoretical and practical issues
  • New conceptual toolboxes to facilitate learning the craft of interviewing
  • Expanded to incorporate more excellent interview studies throughout
  • Revised to offer an increased focus on the positions of interviewer and interviewee, and how each influences the very process of interviewing
  • Updated with the most recent information to provide an overview of the rapidly expanding field of qualitative interviewing
  • Expanded to cover both empathetic and confrontational interviews

KEY FEATURES:

  • Pedagogical devices such as text boxes, practice activities, and a glossary to support student learning
  • Thoughtful and comprehensive discussions of ethics, interviewing across contexts, and analyzing interview data
  • Coverage of ethical considerations in qualitative research, including the key concepts of designing and implementing ethical research designs, as well as the practicalities of navigating IRBs
  • Key aspects of interviewing, including conceptualizing and designing an interview inquiry, the interview situation, different forms of interviewing, and validating and reporting interview studies to prepare readers for using interviewing to meet their research goals.
  • Interview transcripts to help readers integrate the practical application of conducting an interview with coding and analysis of the data
  • Provides in-depth coverage of the qualitative research interview as a context for knowledge production
  • A variety of interview forms and ways of analyzing interview talk addressed
  • Phenomenological analyses of participants' reports, as well as interpretations of interview talk as “accounts occasioned by the situation”

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 1

Chapter 2


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