RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY IN INTERVIEWS 151
minimize this. Silverman (1993) suggests that it
is important for each interviewee to understand
the question in the same way. He suggests that
the reliability of interviews can be enhanced by:
careful piloting of interview schedules; training of
interviewers; inter-rater reliability in the coding
of responses; and the extended use of closed
questions.
On the other hand, Silverman (1993) argues for
the importance of open-ended interviews, as this
enables respondents to demonstrate their unique
way of looking at the world – their definition of
the situation. It recognizes that what is a suitable
sequence of questions for one respondent might be
less suitable for another, and open-ended questions
enable important but unanticipated issues to be
raised.
Oppenheim (1992: 96–7) suggests several
causes of bias in interviewing:
biased sampling (sometimes created by
the researcher not adhering to sampling
instructions)
poor rapport between interviewer and interviewee
changes to question wording (e.g. in attitudinal
and factual questions)
poor prompting and biased probing
poor use and management of support materials
(e.g. show cards)
alterations to the sequence of questions
inconsistent coding of responses
selective or interpreted recording of data/
transcripts
poor handling of difficult interviews.
One can add to this the issue of ‘acquiescence’
(Breakwell 2000: 254), the tendency that
respondents may have to say ‘yes’, regardless of
the question or, indeed, regardless of what they
really feel or think.
There is also the issue of leading questions. A
leading question is one which makes assumptions
about interviewees or ‘puts words into their
mouths’, where the question influences the answer,
perhaps illegitimately. For example (Morrison
1993: 66–7) the question ‘When did you stop
complaining to the headteacher’ assumes that
the interviewee had been a frequent complainer,
and the question ‘How satisfied are you with
the new Mathematics scheme’ assumes a degree
of satisfaction with the scheme. The leading
questions here might be rendered less leading by
rephrasing, for example: ‘How frequently do you
have conversations with the headteacher’ and
‘What is your opinion of the new Mathematics
scheme’ respectively.
In discussing the issue of leading questions, we
are not necessarily suggesting that there is not a
place for them. Indeed Kvale (1996: 158) makes
a powerful case for leading questions, arguing
that they may be necessary in order to obtain
information that the interviewer suspects the
interviewee might be withholding. Here it might
be important to put the ‘burden of denial’ onto
the interviewee (e.g. ‘When did you stop beating
your wife’). Leading questions, frequently used
in police interviews, may be used for reliability
checks with what the interviewee has already said,
or may be deliberately used to elicit particular
non-verbal behaviours that give an indication of
the sensitivity of the interviewee’s remarks.
Hence reducing bias becomes more than
simply: careful formulation of questions so that
the meaning is crystal clear; thorough training
procedures so that an interviewer is more aware
of the possible problems; probability sampling of
respondents; and sometimes matching interviewer
characteristics with those of the sample being
interviewed. Oppenheim (1992: 148) argues, for
example, that interviewers seeking attitudinal
responses have to ensure that people with known
characteristics are included in the sample – the
criterion group. We need to recognize that the
interview is a shared, negotiated and dynamic
social moment.
The notion of power is significant in the
interview situation, for the interview is not simply
a data collection situation but a social and
frequently a political situation. Literally the word
‘inter-view’ is a view between people, mutually, not
the interviewer extracting data, one-way, from the
interviewee. Power can reside with interviewer
and interviewee alike (Thapar-Björkert and Henry
2004), though Scheurich (1995: 246) argues that,
Chapter 6