Qualitative Research Interviewing: Typology of Graduate Students' Interview Questions

Abstract

This paper is a corpus linguistics research that examined the typology of questions asked by graduate students who did papers that solely followed qualitative research interviewing.  Corpus linguistics is a methodological approach employed to analyze patterns of language use in naturally occurring texts. The paper investigated the breadth and structure of the interview questions and the unproductive questions found in the corpus. The corpus consisted of 7,516 interview questions examined following the structure-breadth-function typology of questions as a framework.  The corpus was analyzed by identifying the patterns of the interview questions for these to be properly typologized. Results revealed that Wh- questions (5,365 of the 7,516 questions or 71.381%) were the most frequently asked interview questions, followed by the yes-no questions (1,455 or 19.359%). Tell-Explain-Describe or TED questions (6 or 0.106%) had the least frequency of occurrence. Additionally, closed-ended questions (3,977 or 52.914%) were more prevalent than open-ended questions (3,539 or 47.086%).  While a total of 802 prefaced questions were identified with so-prefaced questions as the most pervasive (446 or 56.611%).  Finally, the study results showed that leading and multiple questions constituted the unproductive interview questions, the latter being the most preponderant with 700 or 55.556% of the 1,260 unproductive questions.  The subcategorizations yes-no and wh- leading questions; and multiple yes-no, multiple yes-no-wh-, and multiple wh- (serial and single) questions are nowhere to be found in the available literature on interview questions, thus adding to the value of the present study. The quality of qualitative research interviewing is facilitated by the typology of questions interviewers asked based on the structure and breadth of the questions. Generally, the wh- open-ended type is the more appropriate one in qualitative research interviewing.