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Research Methods Topic

The learning units in this topic are concerned with how you will be doing your research. There is a very wide range of research methods available to you, and you will have to spend some time deciding which method or methods are the most appropriate, both with regard to your topic and to the approach you have decided to take. If you are a student in the physical sciences then you will probably find you tend toward quantitative or positivist methods. If you are studying the social sciences then qualitative or interpretive methods may be more appropriate. But this is a generalization, and much of the really interesting and innovative research uses a blend of both qualitative and quantitative methods.
Research methods > Interviewing > Where will you interview?

Where will you interview?

a set of chairs
  • What locations can you interview in? What is available to you?
  • Can you ask an interviewee to check if the place is really suitable?
  • Is the ambience appropriate - will the interviewee feel comfortable?
  • Is it suitably private?
  • Have you considered protecting yourself from harm and accusations of misconduct?

If you do not have a choice of venue but are making do with the best you can,e.g. interviewing hospital inpatients, then you may need to consider how this will affect the interview. For example, will the interviewees be less likely to answer your questions or talk openly? You should do all you can to make sure that the interview venue impacts minimally upon the interview.

The nature of your interview, if informal, may mean that conversations or interviews crop up during the course of your observation or ethnographic study. In such cases the location of your interview will be that place in which it occurs and there will be very little you can do in way of preparation regarding the location. If this is a distinct possibility during your research then whilst you can't prepare your location per se you can make sure that you yourself are prepared for opportunistic encounters by ensuring that you always carry a notebook and plenty of pens, or even a dictaphone if you intend to ask permission to record the interview.
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