The Long Interview (Qualitative Research Methods)

The Long Interview provides a systematic guide to the theory and methods of the long qualitative interview or intensive interviewing. It gives a clear explanation of one of the most powerful tools of the qualitative researcher. The volume begins with a general overview of the character and purpose of qualitative inquiry and a review of key issues. The author outlines the four steps of the long qualitative interview and how to judge quality. He then offers practical advice for those who commission and administer this research, including sample questionnaires and budgets to help readers design their own. The author introduces key theoretical and methodological issues, various research strategies, and a simple four stage model of inquiry, from the design of an open-ended questionnaire to the write up of results.

"Continue[s] the high quality of previously published volumes in the SAGE series on qualitative research methods. Grant McCracken shows how the long interview can be devised in order to understand respondents in their own terms, the use of prompts to follow-up questions being a particularly important feature. The analysis and writing up of such information is examined in considerable detail and will be of interest to students who are often baffled by qualitative data." Author: Contemporary Sociology

"Grant McCracken provides one of the finest bibliographies on the qualitative-quantitative debate that I have ever seen...This selective bibliography alone would be worth the price of the book...McCracken [has a] pleasant writing style, which is balanced, graceful, and witty." Author: Journal of Marketing Research