RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

374 INTERVIEWS
and Ebbutt (1987), Breakwell (1990), Spencer
and Flin (1990), Lewis (1992) and Arksey and
Knight (1999).
Several issues have to be addressed in the
conduct of a group interview, for example:
How to divide your attention as interviewer
and to share out the interviewees’
responses – giving them all a chance to speak
in a group interview.
Do you ask everyone in a group interview to
give a response to a question
How to handle people who are too quiet, too
noisy, who monopolize the conversation, who
argue and disagree with each other
What happens if people become angry with
you or with each other
How to make people be quiet or stop talking
while being polite
How to handle differences in how talkative
people are
How to arrange turn-taking (if appropriate)
Do you ask named individuals questions
How can you have individuals answer without
forcing them
How to handle a range of very different
responses to the same question
Why have you brought together the particular
people in the group
Do you want people to answer in a particular
sequence
What to do if the more experienced people
always answer first in a group interview
As an interviewer, be vigilant to pick up on
people who are trying to speak.
It must be borne in mind when conducting group
interviews that the unit of analysis is the view of
the whole group and not the individual member;
acollectivegroupresponseisbeingsought,even
if there are individual differences or a range of
responses within the group. This ensures that no
individual is either unnecessarily marginalized or
subject to blame or being ostracized for holding a
different view.
Group interviews are also very useful when
interviewing children, and it is to this that we
now turn.
Interviewing children
It is important to understand the world of children
through their own eyes rather than the lens
of the adult. Children differ from adults in
cognitive and linguistic development, attention
and concentration span, ability to recall, life
experiences, what they consider to be important,
status and power (Arksey and Knight 1999:
116). All of these have a bearing on the
interview. Arksey and Knight (1999: 116–18) also
indicate that it is important to establish trust with
children, to put the child at ease quickly and
to help him/her to feel confident, to avoid overreacting
(e.g. if the child is distracted), to make
the interview non-threatening and enjoyable, to
use straightforward language and child’s language,
to ask questions that are appropriate for the age of
the child, to keep to the ‘here and now’, to avoid
using ‘why’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ questions with very
young children (e.g. below 5 years old), to ensure
that children can understand abstract questions
(often for older children), to allow time to think,
and to combine methods and activities in an
interview (e.g. drawing, playing, writing, speaking,
playing a game, using pictures, newspapers, toys or
photographs).
Group interviewing can be useful with children,
as it encourages interaction between the group
rather than simply a response to an adult’s
question. Group interviews of children might
also be less intimidating for them than individual
interviews. Eder and Fingerson (2003: 34) suggest
that a power and status dynamic is heavily
implicated in interviewing children; they have
little in comparison to the adult. Indeed Thorne
(1994) uses the term ‘kids’ rather than ‘children’,
as the former is the term used by the children
themselves, whereas ‘children’, she argues, is a term
used exclusively by adults, denoting subordinacy
(cf. Eder and Fingerson 2003: 34). Mayall (1999)
suggests regarding children as a ‘minority group’,
in that they lack power and control over their
own lives. If this is the case, then it is important
to take steps to ensure that children are given a
voice and an interview setting in which they feel
comfortable. Group interviewing is such a setting,