Pesquisa Qualitativa

A Code of Conduct for Qualitative Interviewers

Susan Eliot  

 

Have you ever found yourself instantly disliking one of the participants in a focus group you’re conducting? Or feeling a strong revulsion for something an interviewee is saying?

It happens all the time.

Good qualitative interviewing requires being a real human being. Human beings have feelings, implicit biases, moods, past histories, and preferences.  It’s only natural that not everyone’s feelings and preferences will match up with our own.  Luckily, we are all wired for compassion, understanding, and respect.

To do this work—listening to human beings one-on-one—I imagine we all have a little code of conduct imbedded within us that we’ve never made explicit. Things like, “be open to everything you hear,” and “seek first to understand” could be on that list.

I was forced to think about my own list when one of my favorite newscasters, Jim Lehrer, stepped down last year from anchor of the PBS NewsHour.  For 36 years, he interviewed all kinds of people: famous movie stars, presidents, politicians.  No matter who he interviewed, I admired the humility, respect, and curiosity Jim exhibited in every interview I watched him conduct.

At the time of Jim’s stepping down, Robert MacNeil, his former co-anchor and News Hour co-founder, revealed the personal code of conduct by which Lehrer has done his work. Listening to MacNeil pay tribute to his friend and colleague, I could not help but consider how relevant Lehrer’s code of conduct is for us as qualitative interviewers.

Here are eight points from Jim Lehrer’s code of conduct that resonate with me. Substitute the word “interview” for the word “story” and “interviewee” for “viewer” to see how many you include in your own code of conduct.

1.  Do nothing I cannot defend.
2.  Cover, write and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.
3.  Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.
4.  Assume the viewer is as smart and caring and good a person as I am.
5.  Assume the same about all people on whom I report.
6.  Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight stories. And clearly label everything.
7.  No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.
8.  And . . . finally . . . I am not in the entertainment business!

I find that one of the most challenging parts of qualitative interviewing—being human—can also be the most rewarding if I’m grounded in respect for that other human being. A solid code of conduct could help remind me that the dignity of the human being I’m interviewing trumps any juicy piece of data I might retrieve.