Validating a Long Qualitative Interview Schedule

Abstract

This paper describes the process of validating a long qualitative interview whose aim was to discover the views and teaching practices of teachers of an important first-year university course. The course was important because it prepared the students for the academic requirements of studying at the university. An in-depth qualitative interview with the course teachers was deemed to be the most effective tool for the purpose, given the practical constraints of the research setting. The study describes the design and validation of the interview schedule, based initially on McCracken’s four-step model (1988) for producing an open-ended interview schedule. A 10-point plan for the validation of the interview was devised and carried out. This involved analysis of literature and documents, self-reflection, semi-structured interviews with teachers and students, preparation of a provisional schedule, expert feedback on this, and finally the piloting of the schedule. The pilot interview, which lasted for an hour and 20 minutes, showed that the questions were capable of eliciting rich data on the thinking and practice of the interviewee. It was also effective in highlighting several ways in which the schedule could be improved both through the interviewee feedback and the experience of actually doing the interview. By describing this process in detail, it is intended that the study will serve the purpose of demonstrating how to go about validating such a research instrument for novice researchers.