Theme 6: Reflection

This week's theme was quantitative methods and case studies. During the seminar we discussed different types of quantitative methods, such as interviews and data analysis. Like I said in my earlier post the quantitative method used in my paper was individual interviews with children. We discussed a little bit if you need a different approach while interviewing children vs adults. Before the discussion I separated children and adults and as two totally different groups. I never thought that you might need different approaches while interviewing different adults as well. If I'm about to interview employees at a company I need to have in consideration what kind of position the employees have. A CEO might feel the need to answer questions in a certain way because of the position, and a regular employer maybe hesitate to answer certain question because of eventual consequences. Before each interview it's crucial to prepare the questions to fit each person being interviewed. 

Interviews is always difficult because the purpose of the method is to get as correct and honest answers as possible but it might not always be the case. There can be certain circumstances that affect how people answer to the questions, as job position or private issues. It’s crucial that the person being interviewed feels comfortable to speak their mind and it’s the interviewers responsibility to create a good environment. I have been interviews myself many times in different research projects and I know how different I performed if I felt comfortable or not. If I felt a connection with the person responsible for the interview I thereby felt more trust and answered the questions more honestly. While being interviewed you want to feel that your answers matters and that you are the main focus all the time. It’s not difficult performing interviews but it you prepare carefully the result should be great.