My experience with conducting research interviews:
During Junior High and College I have had a good amount of experience conducting research interviews. For an eighth grade research paper we had to learn more about a profession/ job that we were interested in learning more about. I decided to learn about the disk jockeys on the radio. This was one of the most rewarding academic experiences for me. For this project I was able to visit the Live 105.3 studio and interview Jared, a popular Disk Jockey on this alternative rock station. Along with conducting the interview I had a full tour of the studio in San Francisco where I was able to see how everything worked. For this project I also was able to visit 89.3 KOHL, a local college radio station, and interview the main person in charge. For the second project I interviewed a teacher’s aide about a teacher/student formed band at the school. In college I had experience interviewing two professors with a fellow classmate for my MUSE class called play and creativity.
Things that went well:
There were many things that went well. For each interview I did research beforehand and prepared and organized the questions that I was going to ask. The interviews overall went smoothly from beginning to end since I had secondary questions in case the interview started losing momentum. I also was able to conduct the interview within a reasonable time limit which is important especially when the person being interviewed has different agendas to attend to.
Things that needed improvement:
The most needed improvement was learning how to control my nerves and to be confident in my interview. In any kind of situation where I do not know the person well or just met I just need to be confident in conducting myself.
Here’s some advice:
1) During an interview it is important to bring a voice recorder. These instruments are a great resource to making your interview go smoothly. Just make sure to ask permission before your interview if you can use it. Also test your recorder out before using it during the actual interview.
2) My second advice to everyone is to make sure you know a little about the person and what they specialize in or do. This is important if you want to formalize questions that will greatly be beneficial to the interview and spark the interest of the person you are interviewing.
3) The last advice is to thank the individual before and after the interview for their time.
P.S. I am so sorry that this post is so long but I hope that it's beneficial.
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WOW!!! I cant believe you have had so much experience so far with interviewing. I have never done an interview before, for school or for personal reasons for that matter. I thought it was really good that you prepared by doing research before hand so you knew what questions you were going to ask. I also thought it was good that you thought about the agenda of the other person not just your own and watched how long the interview went for. Even though I have never given an interview I can imagine the thing that you needed improvement with I would as well. It's hard to not let your nerves control you but it seems just from reading your post that the interview went well and you handled yourself the best you could.
ReplyDeleteHi KiwiMango,
ReplyDeleteI like how you have organized and prepared yourself and the questions before the interview. I don't even prepare as much as you and I think that is why I don't get as much information as I needed. Of course, everyone gets nervous when asking because that is all of our fears and we are here to overcome it right? Anyways, the tips you gave out is important and helpful. Bringing a recorded is truly helpful like how you said. I once did an interview and if I had brought my recorder, I would have gotten more information rather than writing down while interviewee is talking. Besides we can always replay the recorder after the interview. As of for the 2nd tip, I think that is true too because if we don't know the person we are interviewing or at least what the person does, then the interview session would be really awkward.
Hello Kiwimango! I am glad to read that you have some experience conducting interviews. You might want to consider doing an interview for one of your sources for your speeches. Of course, doing interviews with credible sources is necessary.
ReplyDeleteWhat type of sources are you using for this coming speech?