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• About
  • Acknowledgements
  • About the Author
  • Purpose
  • For Instructors
  • What is Qualitative Research
  • Ethics
  • Ethnicity and Race
• Interviewing
  • Characteristics of Good Interviews
    • Narrative Rich Data
    • Descriptive Data
    • First Hand Accounts
    • Emotions as Data
  • The Complexity of Rich Data
    • The Complexity of Memory
    • Simplifications as a Source of Contradiction
    • The Use of Negative Cases and Unexpected Findings
  • Phrasing Questions and Other Techniques
    • Avoid Yes/No Questions
    • Avoid ”Multiple-choice“ and Double-barreled Questions
    • Don’t Switch Topics Too Frequently
    • Avoid the ‘Why‘ Question
    • Avoid Asking for Little Known Facts
    • Avoid Imposing Concepts
    • Avoid Leading Questions
    • Listen Attentively
    • Ask About Sensitive Issues Skillfully
    • Adjust Questions to the Respondent’s Situation
    • Ask for Clarification
    • Ask Open-ended Questions
    • Ask the Respondent to Tell a Story
    • Ask Questions to Elicit the Personal Voice
  • Field Notes
  • Conventions for Transcribing Interviews
• Reflexivity
  • Process of Reflection
  • Conceptual Baggage
    • Married Women’s Occupation
    • Ethnic Assimilation
    • The Heterosexual Nuclear Family
  • The Research Relationship
• Analysis
  • Introduction
  • Finding a Focus
  • Possible Research Topics
  • Open Coding
  • Focused Coding
  • Developing an Analytical Lens
  • Memoing
  • Formulating the Research Question
  • Using the Literature
  • Drafting the Research Paper
  • Revising the Draft
• Data
  • Selection of Respondents
  • The Interview Archive

Avoid Asking for Little-known Facts

In qualitative interviewing, questions should focus on respondents' personal knowledge. Avoid asking for little-known information. Here we have assembled all responses to the question, "How many people from St. Vincent are here living in Canada and Montreal?" The answers are wildly divergent. One should avoid asking such questions because: (1) it is unrealistic to expect respondents to provide reliable information; (2) there are more reliable ways to get the information; (3) one cannot possibly make use of the discrepant answers provided.

Interview	Respondent	Response to "How many people from St. Vincent and the Grenadines are living in Canada and Montreal?"
1	Bob	Montreal maybe 15,000. Toronto, a lot. I don't know if it totals 50,000.
2	Diane	In Montreal, last count, 6,000 or more…
3	Lionel	I don't know, I couldn't guess.
4	Paul	In the whole Canada maybe 20,000. If that much. Probably less.
5	Judy	5,000-8,000, including children born here?
6	Veronica	I don't know. Maybe roughly about 75,000.
7	Carl	I don't have an accurate figure. I don't know of any study that was done. I guess it is a couple of thousands.
8	Ted	I suppose a few thousands.
9	Ruth	Ruth: I have no knowledge, it's growing rapidly… I know some of my friends went back home, with a masters, Ph.D., and they taught school, built a house… Maybe I'll go back.
10	Gerry	I don't think anybody really knows. National association says it is about the pop of St. Vincent and the Grenadines it about 150,000. But we say that there is really about 250,000 but almost half live abroad. About 20,000 living in Canada, perhaps 5,000 in Montreal.
11	Andy	No idea.
13	Ross	I wouldn't be able to hazard a guess.
14	Connie	When Canada opened its doors to domestics, I was working in the Labour department at that time and a good many people came over. The women were screened in St. Vincent. If she had children she wasn't allowed to go. Also she had to have a certain standard of education. We used to give them classes in domestic sciences, because a lot of them did office work.
15	Darlene	I really don't know. They're always moving from St. Vincent, …

Exercise: "Don't ask me. I really don't know."

Review the Caribbean interviews. Select and comment on examples where the respondent is asked to provide information beyond his or her knowledge.

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«Avoid the ‘Why‘ Question Avoid Imposing Concepts»

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