Complexity: Medium
Time required: An ethnographic interview usually takes one researcher the minimum of one hour. Some can take many hours and may be slit over two or more sessions
Material required: Voice recorder if decide to use, notepad and pen for recording observations
References: Spradley, J. P. (1980)
What is it for?
To learn more about people’s motivations, barriers, moments of change social networks and choice logics.
How to use it?
This is a guide for an individual researcher or a group of researchers to use with members of their chosen population. The ethnographic interview is usually lightly structured but the interviewer may need to think of some core outcomes that they would like to see from the interview and shape some initial questions around this.
Additional tips?
Ethnography is an iterative approach. When the researcher has found out more they may want to come back to the same interviewee – either to elicit deeper understanding or to check the resonation of any findings.
