Development of Qualitative Semi-Structured Interview Guide for Case Study Research

Abstract

Interviewing is an effective strategy to acquire data for qualitative research that uses case studies as a research methodology.  It helps to explain, understand, and explore research subjects' opinions, behavior, and experiences to narrow down the area of research that researcher is interested to discover while listening to them being involved through dialogue. Therefore, structured or semi-structured interviews become effective tools of knowing the experiences and perceptions of research subjects relating to central themes of area of investigation. The aim of this research is to share with researchers the systematic process to be followed in developing semi-structured interview guides. Literature review suggests five distinct phases that the researcher needs to be mindful of when developing a qualitative semi-structured interview guide; they must identify if the prerequisites for conducting a semi-structured interview are met, utilize previously acquired knowledge, formulate a preliminary guide, pilot test it, and then present the completed semi-structured interview guide. Salient features of each phase are explained through literary support followed by researcher’s experience of working on each phase to proceed in developing the interview guide.  A well-developed semi- structured interview guide becomes an authentic and valid source of data collection whereas weakly developed semi-structured interview guide distorts the findings of research resulting in unreliable, inaccurate and invalid data collected.