1. Practice makes perfect. Try your hand at an interview and prepare a report on your interview for me. This exercise was excerpted from C. George Boeree's online Qualitative Research Workbook.


For this project, find someone slightly different from yourself and interview this person. Ask them for an hour or two of their time; explain what you are doing and ask their permission to record the interview. If you have a tape recorder, you may
use it if they don't mind. Otherwise, take notes -- minimal ones that don't interfere with the flow of the conversation; later, you can sit down by yourself and "fill in the blanks." Even if you do use a tape recorder, you might want to try this to sharpen your
recording and remembering skills!

You are to pick a topic that might interest both you and your interviewee. Make it a value question, something the person will have an opinion on, something concerning judgements of good and bad.

The interview is of the informal conversational interview variety. This means that, although you may interact with the person -- ask questions, ask for detail, for clarification, and so on -- you should avoid, as much as possible, forcing the person in any direction, other than keeping their attention on the original topic. In other words, back off and let them express themselves.

Summarize the interview in the textbox below, paraphrasing or using the person's own words where they are most effective, using your own words otherwise. Communicate to the prospective reader what the person was expressing! You will -- necessarily, I think -- need to use your "empathy" or "intuition" to do this. but take great care not to put your ideas into his or her mouth.

For grading purposes, please provide the following information:

Once you have filled in the areas above, click the Send button below to send your response to the instructor.