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Research Methods - Interviewing - Warrants in Interviews

6 important questions on Research Methods - Interviewing - Warrants in Interviews

What is researcher’s credibility and what are its 5 components?

Researcher’s credibility is an important standard by which interpretive research is judged, because the researcher is the instrument through which interpretations and meanings are made.

The 5 components: 1. Level of researcher training/experience, 2. Researcher’s degree of membership in the social context, 3. Faithfulness, 4. coherence & 5. Reflexivity

What does the first credibility component (warrant) training and experience entail?

Unlike research conducted through a discovery approach where reliability and validity are important to determine the effectiveness of an instrument and/or experiment, the researcher is the instrument in the interpretive approach. Therefore, their level of experience in interviewing is important.

If one is aware of what should happen, we all learn some things in the field. Then you become theory aware and field aware.

What does the second credibility component (warrant) degree of membership entail?

Researchers should be deeply involved and closely connected to the scene, activity or group being studied, while at the same time achieve enough distance to allow for recording of action and interactions relatively uncoloured by what you might have had at stake. This creates a difficult balancing act.

A researcher too involved may lack the distance and affect their interpretation of the data. Much of the difficulty goes back to our emic vs. etic discussion

What does the third credibility component (warrant) faithfulness entail?

Faithfulness means being detailed. When a researcher is in the field conducting interviews, they should consider: have I spent enough time in the field, have I interviewed enough people, have I gone over my notes and transcripts enough and have I conducted enough research to support my findings?

What does the fourth credibility component (warrant) coherence entail?

Coherence= logic and internal validity. When conducting an interpretive study using interviews, a researcher must ask if the results logically support the claims they are making. When your examples are coherent, we can relate our findings to similar social situations.

What does the last credibility component (warrant) reflexivity entail?

When we reflect on the research process, we are considering the research process and our place in it. Different theoretical approaches, values and interests may affect the research process.

As a researcher you should consider your position in relation to what you are studying. How do different aspects (you education, socio-economic status, religious beliefs, age, gender, sex, political views & personal experiences) impact what questions you are interested in asking? You should personally reflect on and be aware of these factors while conducting your interviews and later when analysing them.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Understanding Communication Research Methods A Theoretical and Practical Approach | 9781135053628 | Stephen M Croucher, et al

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