You conducted qualitative research for your dissertation and now want to incorporate an interview: how can you do that? It’s likely that this was never communicated to you, and you have no idea what to expect. That’s why, in this post, we’ll show you how to integrate interviews in your dissertation’s discussion part, as well as how to cite them.
Incorporating interviews into your dissertation is a good idea.
You must first transcribe your interviews before you can present them in your dissertation. You can do this with transcribing software. The written interviews can then be added to the appendix. If you have a lot of interviews or they are very extensive, the appendix can be presented as a separate document (after consulting with your supervisor). It’s important to be able to show that the interviews truly took place.
In relation to interviews
You can then paraphrase the interviews in your dissertation after they’ve been placed to the appendix. The procedure for paraphrasing is as follows:
Example: Using your own interview as an example
Interviewee X (Appendix 1) claims that the…
During an interview with Y, it became evident that.. (Appendix 1).
The transcription of an interview may or may not be allowed to be included in the appendix. It is not possible to refer to this interview in this situation. According to APA guidelines, it can be referred to as follows:
An example would be a reference to your interview that isn’t included in the appendix.
X (personal communication, December 24, 2012) claims…
Using quotes from interviews
If you copy the interviewee’s statements verbatim, you must quote them. It’s easier to come up with interesting quotes if you know how to get useful information from the individual you’re interviewing. As a result, you should perform the interviews professionally.
Mentioning the interviewee’s name
Instead of simply writing down the name of the person you’re interviewing, ask yourself two questions:
- Is it okay if you mention the name? Before including the interviewee’s name in a dissertation, you should ask yourself this question. Determine if the name may be mentioned in consultation with the interviewee. In some cases, the interviewee does not wish to be interviewed. This could be the case if you’ve had an interview with an employee and the employee doesn’t want his or her employer to be able to read the answers since it might jeopardize their working relationship. Another scenario in which this can happen is when the interviewer asks really intimate questions.
- Is it necessary to mention the name? The second consideration is whether or not it is necessary to mention the name. Is there anything it adds to your research? The name of the interviewee is less significant when the interviewee is an unknown individual you encountered on the street. However, if you’ve spoken with the CEO of a significant corporation, it’s important to include his or her name. In the second situation, include a brief introduction so that the dissertation reader understands who this individual is right away.
Thus, if you have the interviewee’s consent and the name is relevant to the research, you may mention it. You can use a description if you don’t have permission to use the name or if you don’t want to mention the name.
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