A Guide for the design and implementation of a service-learning (SL)

CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V

Interview

Structured Interview

concept is just one of many possible (Guber, p.207, 2004).

The interview is one of the tools that allows an important approach to the meanings that people have about a specific topic or problem. This is because the interview can make reference to past or present actions, relationships and everything that adds information to the physical and behavioral context of the people involved. The interview may be informal or with previous consensus. The objective is to obtain first source information in order to diagnose and assess possible causes and consequences of a given problem. It is important to consider that there is a variety of techniques for the implementation of an interview, according to the purpose or mode in which it will be given. This is why it is important to have first a clear objective of what is intended with the interview in order to use it in the best way. Reference material: Guber, R. (2004). El salvaje metro- politano. Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidós.

This is a data collection technique in which the researcher prepares specific and closed questions to obtain and code information in a hermetic manner. In this case, the questions may be grouped according to thematic axes (perception about a topic, knowledge about a topic, possible solutions to the problem, etc.). Something that should be taken into consideration when conducting interviews is the conceptual framework of both the interviewer and the interviewee. It should be understood that the selection of questions will be biased by the interviewer's field of knowledge. For example, when asking an office worker and a housewife: "What is your job?", the researcher may have a predetermined notion of work, to which he or she will almost certainly try to adjust the answers, without mediation. What assumptions does this question cover? That the informant performs an activity consisting of work that is paid for the hours invested. However, this

This is why it is advisable to prepare the questions in advance and even present them to another person to eliminate any ambiguity.

Non-structured interview

In a non-structured interview, the questions to be asked are rather open, in order to allow for a wider range of questions. In this case the interviewer can also prepare a set of questions, the coding of the interview is usually more complete due to the breadth that may be given. In this sense, it is important for the interviewer to be prepared to construct the answers together with the interviewee, according to the characteristics of the problem to be addressed. In other words, the interaction between the person who is interviewing and the person being interviewed is more similar to a conversation, but with the purpose of deeply understanding the subject that is expected to be addressed.

TOOLS FOR FIELD WORK

TOOLS FOR FIELD WORK

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