How to Do Qualitative Interviewing

Whether you are new to interviewing and working toward an undergraduate dissertation or refining your fieldwork as you complete a research project, this book contains everything you need to know for successful qualitative interview data collection.

Organised around practical hints, reflexive tasks, bite-sized pieces of information and original case study material, the authors’ candid accounts of their research experiences help you approach qualitative interviewing with transparency, consistency and confidence.

It walks you through how to:

• Decide if interviews are the right tool for your project
• Turn your research ideas into well-phrased interview questions
• Navigate ethical review and informed consent 
• Recruit participants
• Choose an effective interview style
• Adapt your methods for different populations
• Transcribe and analyse your data.

Dr Bethany Morgan Brett is a lecturer in Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, and a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist. She holds a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Essex. She has 15 years lecturing experience in social psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychosocial studies. Her research has primarily focused on ageing and the life course development. Her key areas of specialism include coping with loss, grief, depression and anxiety, trauma, care, and end of life issues. She also worked for nine years in the UK Data Archive and specialises in research data management, digitising and archiving qualitative research collections, and qualitative research ethics.

She has published a number of journal articles and is currently authoring a monograph for Policy Press on Adult Children and Ageing Parents. She has also recently co-authored textbook with Dr Katy Wheeler How to Do Qualitative Interviewing which is due to be published by SAGE later in 2021.

Dr Katy Wheeler is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at The University of Essex. Her research interests are in the fields of sustainability, consumption, circular economy and environmental education. She is also an experienced qualitative methods trainer, with interests in technological reflexivity and the use of QDAS, as well as qualitative interviewing and analysis. She has published widely within leading academic journals (recent publications have appeared in Qualitative Research in Psychology; Environmental Education Research; and Journal of Cleaner Production) and she has two authored monographs (Fair-Trade and the Citizen-Consumer: Shopping for Justice (2012), Palgrave;  Recycling and Consumption Work: Social and moral economies (2015), Palgrave), as well as  co-authored the textbook ‘How to do Qualitative Interviewing’ (SAGE, 2022 – with Morgan Brett). She has taught social science methodology courses for many years (both qualitative and quantitative), from introductory undergraduate to advanced postgraduate.