transcribing for PhD

positivenote

Hey All,
ive a few one-one interviews lined up as part of my research and im just wondering if anyone has any tips when it comes to transcribing them? Having conducted one interview already it turned more into a conversation and Im wondering would it be okay to transcribe the questions as they where intended to be asked or does everything have to be transcribed exactly as it was said? Im new to this, so excuse the ignorance.
Thanks

Michael Collins

I would imagine the questions would have to be written verbatim. It's unfair on the interviewees otherwise - they are responding to the question you asked after all, not the one you intended to be asked.

Black Swan

Do you have an interview protocol in your research design? Some protocols provide a structure for the collection of interview data in a step-by-step order; e.g., introduction, a progressive set of questions, each followed by probes, and each with space provided to record what the interviewee says, along with interviewer observations occurring during the conduct of the interview (the interviewee's answers and the interviewer's process observations included in the transcriptions, as ordered by the protocol).

Some interview protocols are less pre-structured, engaging the interviewee in a conversation, using a Grounded Theory approach, whereupon the structure for the transcription of interview data emerges during its conduct. This is a very open-ended qualitative approach used during the conduct of interviews, with the analytic coding, categorizing, theme recognition, etc., occurring at the same time as data collection/transcription.

When citing support for the design of our interview protocols, we often reference: Creswell, J.W. (1998), Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions, London: Sage (which you may find freely available in your university library).

djpbarry

Moved from postgraduates.