Interview Preparation

Upon listening to my assigned interviews, I noticed one thing in particular on numerous occasions.  While the conversation tended to flow rather naturally, there were definitely a few instances in which the question confused the interviewee, and perhaps the interviewer as well.  I say this because on multiple occasions, when the interviewee asked for a clarification about a particular inquiry, the interviewer would simply repeat the question instead of rephrasing in a way that the interviewee could better understand.  Then, a half-hearted answer would come, since it was so unclear what was being asked.  In my opinion, there were times when this not only stalled the conversation, but regressed it as well.  I feel that many important questions were left unanswered, simply because even the interviewer did not fully understand what she was asking.  With greater preparation and understanding of the questions, I believe these interviews could have gone far more efficiently.

However, all in all, they did go well, as it seemed like the two participants developed a level of comfort with one another over the course of the three one-hour calls.  In fact, I think as they moved later into the interview process, conversation flowed more and more naturally, which inevitably improved the efficiency.  For the sake of the research, both on the interviewer’s end and on my end, things in the earlier stages could have gone better without this learning curve.  Obviously though, there is nothing that could have been done to prevent it, as the first interview was the two’s first time speaking.  This being said, I just found it interesting to see this particular progression throughout the process.