
Groningen, Netherlands
AI in Higher Education
When:
07 July - 11 July 2025
Credits:
2 EC
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Social Sciences
When:
24 March - 28 March 2025
School:
Institution:
European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)
City:
Country:
Language:
English
Credits:
4.0 EC
Fee:
492 (member fee) 985 (non-member fee) GBP
Gain a deep understanding of interviewing as a data collection method by developing your skills in designing interview protocols, dealing with the practicalities of conducting interviews, managing personal interactions and strengthening reflexivity.
Need to know
Any prior knowledge of research design and methods is an asset, but not required.
You are expected to conduct approx. 3 hours of preparatory work for each session, which includes readings, pre-recorded videos and practical assignments.
If you have interview experience, you will be asked to describe a scenario of an unexpected and/or uncomfortable event that happened while interviewing.
You will be expected to practice interviewing and conduct a semi-structured interview with a family member, friend or colleague as part of the course.
Learning commitment
As a participant in this course, you will engage in a variety of learning activities designed to deepen your understanding and mastery of the subject matter. While the cornerstone of your learning experience will be the daily live teaching sessions, which total three hours each day across the five days of the course, your learning commitment extends beyond these sessions.
Upon payment and registration for the course, you will gain access to our Learning Management System (LMS) approximately two weeks before the course start date. Here, you will have access to course materials such as pre-course readings. The time commitment required to familiarise yourself with the content and complete any pre-course tasks is estimated to be approximately 20 hours per week leading up to the start date.
During the course week, you are expected to dedicate approximately two-three hours per day to prepare and work on assignments.
Each course offers the opportunity to be awarded three ECTS credits. Should you wish to earn a 4th credit, you will need to complete a post-course assignment, which will involve approximately 25 hours of work.
This comprehensive approach ensures that you not only attend the live sessions but also engage deeply with the course material, participate actively, and complete assessments to solidify your learning.
In depth
Day 1: Interviewing as Data Collection Method
When is interviewing as data collection method appropriate in political science research? What are the different methodological approaches to interviewing and what are the strengths and weaknesses of interview data, in particular for experts and elite interviews? You will learn about how to identify your interviewees, different sampling strategies, how to recruit interviewees and the best mode to conduct these interviews. You will have the opportunity to join in group reflection on the ethical considerations of conducting interviews, such as anonymity, confidentiality, data security, withdrawal, debriefing, informed consent, vulnerable interviewees, and distressing topics.
Day 2: Preparing your Interviews
The quality of the data yielded is strongly dependent on your preparation, the structure of your interview protocol and the questions asked at the various interview stages. This session will focus on interview protocols, question development, the use of stimulus material and pre-testing and subsequently revising your interview protocol, questions and stimulus material. Time will be allocated to discuss the challenges of collecting data in multilingual and multicultural settings.
Day 3: Preparing and Conducting Interviews
In this session, you will deepen your knowledge of interactions between the interviewer and the interviewee and the importance of reflexivity. What is professional behaviour for an interviewer? How does the interviewer create trust and conversational flow? What power, culture and gender dynamics are potentially at play? How can we limit social desirability and confirmation bias in data generation?
Day 4: Conducting and Transcribing Interviews
This session will focus on interviews about sensitive topics and interviews in polarised contexts, such as societies and groups divided by political conflict and heightened (partisan) identities. How do you deal with the emotions of the interviewee and your own emotions as interviewer? You will also acquire knowledge of strategies for dealing with unanticipated events and challenges to the overall data collection (when conducting elite interviews).
Day 5: Analysing and Safeguarding the Quality of Interview Data.
When have you collected enough data? What can you do with your data? You will have the opportunity to discuss different methods of analysing interview data, inductive, and deductive analysis strategies, such as thematic content analysis and conversational analysis alongside the rest of the group. In addition, time will be freed up to touch upon the importance of cross-referencing and conducting validity and reliability checks and risks of misunderstanding and under-theorisation of data.
How the course will work online
The course combines asynchronous pre-class assignments, such as readings and pre-recorded videos, along with daily live online sessions on Zoom. In these sessions, short, focussed discussions will take place on the preparatory readings and pre-recorded videos, conduct and discuss (group) assignments. As part of the course, you will analyse transcripts and recordings of (elite) interviews conducted by other scholars, engage in role-playing and conduct your own interview(s), the latter will be with non-elites. You will be able to book one-to-one consultations with the instructor, over the duration of the course.
Annemarie Walter, Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham, researches parties’ campaign strategies, elite (moral) decision-making, misperceptions and conspiracy beliefs and voters’ responses to politicians’ transgressions.
The course is designed for masters level students and above.
The purpose of this course is to gain an in-depth understanding of interviewing as a data collection method in political science research, by developing your skills in designing interview protocols, dealing with the practicalities of conducting interviews, managing personal interactions and strengthening reflexivity.
The course focuses on one-on-one, expert and elite-interviews. The course is appropriate for researchers wishing to use interviewing as stand-alone data collection method or as part of a mixed-method approach.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- know when to make use of (elite) interviewing as a data collection method
- design your interview study and defend your methodological choices
- gain knowledge of different kinds of interviews and interviewing styles
- be aware of various challenges and strategies involved in recruiting interviewees and conducting interviews, in particular with experts/elites
- independently prepare and conduct interviews
- evaluate and safeguard the quality of interview data
- have basic knowledge on how to analyse interview data and how to report your interview data appropriately
If you're interested in this course, registration opens on 01/10/24 and you register here: https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/PanelDetails/15616
Fee
492 (member fee) 985 (non-member fee) GBP, ECPR Member - check if your institution is a member on our website.
Fee
985 GBP, ECPR Non-Member
When:
24 March - 28 March 2025
School:
Institution:
European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)
Language:
English
Credits:
4.0 EC
Groningen, Netherlands
When:
07 July - 11 July 2025
Credits:
2 EC
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Groningen, Netherlands
When:
30 June - 04 July 2025
Credits:
2.0 EC
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Amsterdam, Netherlands
When:
26 June - 16 July 2025
Credits:
6 EC
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