Co-Interviewing in Qualitative Social Research: Prospects,Merits and Considerations

Abstract

In this paper, we seek to open a dialogue about the approach of co-interviewing, which, to our surprise, has not received much attention in the realm of qualitative social research. The co-interviewing approach stands apart from ‘multiple’ interviewing, in which two or more researchers are tasked with conducting interviews in a single research study. Instead, this approach involves two researchers actively taking part in the same interview. In a qualitative grounded theory study that sought to explore doctoral students’ emotional well-being, we adopted the approach of co-interviewing each of our participants. This process involved us sharing the responsibilities of asking questions, probing, note taking and making observations. Our experience has led us to critically examine this unique approach to interviewing, and here, in this paper, we offer insights about its potential to enhance the generation of data and the research process. In doing so, we draw on literature, whilst reflecting on key concepts including power, reflexivity and well-being, by considering the positions of participants and researchers alike.

Introduction

In qualitative social research, the complex interactions between researchers and participants have been discussed extensively within the methodology literature (Råheim et al., 2016). In interpretivist and constructivist research, participants and researchers take part in the co-construction and situation of knowledge, as diverse social actors. While participants share their views and contribute to a given study as ‘experts’ on their own lives, the researcher’s understanding and position also comes to shape the interpretation of data (Morrow, 2005). However, despite the dual exchange of ideas and understanding, it is the privileged position of the researcher that is overwhelmingly emphasised. The researcher, tasked with collecting participant experiences to fulfil a specific, pre-determined research agenda, evidently holds more power within the research relationship (Newton, 2017). Consequently, most qualitative researchers actively seek to minimise power imbalances through numerous strategies, rather than exacerbate them (Redman-Mclaren et al., 2014). Perhaps, it is for this reason that the prospect of co-interviewing, that is, having two researchers lead a single research interview, has not been extensively explored within the literature.

Few scholarly commentaries have shed light on the prospect of having more than one interviewer participate in an interview. Bechhofer et al. (1984) reflected on the use of two interviewers in unstructured interviews with respondents in the early eighties. Specifically, they discussed the advantages of using a lead interviewer to ‘take up’ the responsibility of questioning and a passive interviewer for the purpose of recording field notes during the interview. However, they also highlighted the potential for multiple interviewers to engage in debate as a ‘useful device’ for increasing the interaction between fieldwork and theory development.

Further insights into the prospect of using multiple interviewers were generated by Rosenblatt (2012) who commented on the tensions between modernist and postmodernist perspectives in qualitative family interviewing. Rosenblatt articulated several motives which led to the deliberate choice to eventually ‘interview together’ with another researcher, including a desire to include varying perspectives in the interview. In drawing on the strengths of this approach, he argued that interviewees will likely connect with different questions from diverse interviewers, based on the ‘multiplicity of interviewer selves, realities, and meanings’ (p. 101). Further, Rosenblatt highlighted the opportunity for colleagues to ‘follow up’ on interesting details that the other interviewer may have missed, by drawing on their own unique skillset and positionality.

Previous research has examined the methodological implications of involving multiple research practitioners as interviewers across a single study (e.g. Boutain & Hitti, 2006; Matteson & Lincoln, 2009), and having a single researcher interview participant ‘couples’ (e.g. Blake et al., 2021; Mavhandu-Mudzusi, 2018). However, few recent studies have explicitly examined the experience of having two researchers actively conduct the same interview. In fact, with the rare exception of work conducted by Redman-Mclaren et al. (2014), no recent literature has specifically interrogated the process of co-interviewing in qualitative research. Clearly, for two researchers to conduct an interview with one participant, there are concerns surrounding an inherent power imbalance, by mere virtue of outnumbering. However, in their work conducting qualitative interviews for HIV research, Redman-Maclaren et al. did not observe that this was the case, concluding that ‘there may be more status provided to the participant when two researchers are present at the interview as greater import is placed on the content shared’ (2014, p. 6). As researchers, we were fascinated by this prospect and started to reflect more on this possibility.

Collaborative approaches are celebrated in other fields, for example, in the experience of co-teaching within educational settings (Scruggs et al., 2007) and indeed in the broader spirit of multidisciplinary research (Disis & Slattery, 2010). Yet, rarely had we heard about having more researchers present within a research interview. We were intrigued by this idea, and in a study that examined doctoral students’ emotional well-being, we decided to pursue co-interviewing as a data collection method. At the time and following our published work on researcher well-being and sensitive research (Velardo & Elliott, 2018), we first envisioned co-interviewing could present an opportunity to protect our own well-being, by prioritising the practice of debriefing and, in turn, reflexivity. We were also excited by the prospect of co-interviewing as a methodological strategy, in and of itself. As such, we actively sought to reflect on the co-interviewing process and to explore observed outcomes for ourselves and our participants.

The Method of Collaborative Co-Interviewing

In 2018, we (SV – an Australian female academic in health promotion and education and SE – an Australian male academic in sport, both in their thirties) conducted individual semi-structured interviews with six doctoral students attending a public university. Our method was underpinned by a relativist ontology and interpretivist epistemology which assumes that people actively construct and then act upon realities they assign to events, actions, processes, ideologies and conditions in the world (Sparkes & Smith, 2014). The notion of ‘multiple realities’ (Atkinson, 2012) was central to how we subsequently collected and analysed qualitative data (for more details about our philosophical underpinnings, please see (Velardo & Elliott, 2021). The interviews contributed to the development of a grounded theory about doctoral student well-being while undertaking qualitative work with vulnerable populations (Velardo & Elliott, 2021). All interviews were conducted on university grounds, in SV or SE’s office. At the time of recruitment, SV and SE provided participants with the option to have one interviewer of choice present, or both researchers within the interview. Each participant expressed preference for having both researchers conduct the interview. At this point, we did not follow up as to why participants preferred the prospect of having both interviewers present.

We worked diligently to create a safe, comfortable atmosphere for our participants and began each interview by sharing our own stories. We both spoke about our experience as doctoral students in the preceding decade and our own journeys of navigating researcher well-being. By demonstrating our own vulnerabilities and our intimate understanding of the student experience, we were able to establish immediate rapport with our participants. During each interview, there was not one ‘lead’ interviewer. Instead, we distributed semi-structured questions and attempted to co-facilitate the interview through shared questioning. At the same time, as with any semi-structured interview, there was a degree of flexibility in the line of questioning, probing and follow-up. We allowed this to develop organically rather than adopting a rigid, ‘your turn, my turn’ approach. In this paper, we refer to this approach as ‘collaborative co-interviewing’, where both researchers share responsibilities and are actively involved in the entire interview process, as opposed to other occasions where one researcher might ask questions (the ‘boss’) while the other serves the role of observer or note taker (the ‘assistant’).

Probing was undertaken spontaneously by both researchers, in line with the semi-structured approach (Galletta, 2013). Both interviewers took notes throughout the course of the interview, paying close attention to recording observations and listening to responses, especially while their colleague was questioning. Immediately following each interview, we debriefed together and discussed our perceptions of the interview, reflecting on key ideas that developed through our participants’ story, as well as the general dynamics of the interview and our experience as co-interviewers. We co-constructed memos, mind-mapped ideas from previous interviews with current lines of thinking and practiced reflexivity through the exchange of conceptual ideas. Each interview was voice recorded and transcribed verbatim by a paid, third-party transcription service. Further details about the grounded theory methodology, participant characteristics, data collection, data analysis and rigour pertaining to the study have been published (Velardo & Elliott, 2021).

Following the lead of Redman-Maclaren et al. (2014), we set out to critically reflect on the experience of co-interviewing and speculate openly about possible advantages and disadvantages associated with our shared presence in the interviews. Overall, we observed consistent benefits across our interviews, but also raise several points that require close consideration by other researchers, given their potential effects.

Merits

Enhanced Atmosphere and Focus for Researchers

One clear advantage of co-interviewing related to our own positive experience of the interviews and, specifically, our increased ability to appreciate the interview. When we interrogated what made the interview more ‘enjoyable’, we both reported feeling more relaxed for not having sole responsibility for listening, questioning, observing and probing. Co-interviewing enabled us to spontaneously probe and listen carefully to the participants, without having to mentally prepare for the ‘next question’. A such, we feel as though this approach gave us more opportunities to be present in the room. Indeed, the process of interviewing is known to be exhausting and can be stressful in terms of having to organise and manage multiple elements (Munro et al., 2004), and we felt as though some of this load was removed.

However, it is worth noting that an enhanced atmosphere can embody an intensified interviewing experience. Upon reflection, and given the sensitive nature of our research, there were times when co-interviewing seemed to magnify emotions, including feelings of discomfort. For example, in one interview, SV broke down in tears, empathising with an emotionally compromised participant who shared her experience of working with street children who had been trafficked for sex. SV took a moment to pause and retract from questioning at this stage, as she processed the intense story at hand. The other researcher, SE, experienced this as quite confrontational and unexpected, in that an interviewee and interviewer were both impacted by the nature of the discussion. Nonetheless, the co-interviewing technique allowed SE to progress the interview in an empathetic, yet focused manner while enabling both the interviewee and his colleague to re-engage with the discussion when they were ready.

Opportunities for Professional Development

The co-interviewing technique offers a form of ‘on the job’ professional development for researchers. The opportunity to learn from another interviewer in real time and observe different approaches to questioning, probing, and follow-up provided us with an opportunity for immediate reflection and learning. The presence of a co-interviewer invited us to compare our own body language, verbal tone, expression, and cadence and make proximal ‘adjustments’ along the way. For instance, SE observed SV seamlessly employ a deliberate pause during a question to amplify a key idea. This was a new technique that SE subsequently employed several questions later. Thus, the co-interviewing model engenders a range of implicit ‘teachable moments’ for researchers. For doctoral students, co-interviewing with a more experienced qualitative researcher (e.g. a supervisor) could be positioned as a novel, yet rich form of research training specific to the collection of rich data. Similarly, early career researchers may benefit by co-interviewing with colleagues from different disciplines and backgrounds to extend, expand and enhance their skills as an interviewer.

Rich Theory Generation

Specific to constructivist grounded theory methodology, we argue that the merit of co-interviewing is intertwined in the collaborative generation of rich theory. Following each interview, we immediately debriefed and co-constructed theoretical memos, discussing important concepts and their interconnections. Although the core process of memo-writing is, according to Weed (2017, p. 152), quite ‘simple’, the co-construction of theoretical memos was an iterative, creative expression that progressed initial codes into more nuanced concepts. Ostensibly, a stronger emphasis on our analytic sensibilities led to a more comprehensive pursuit of hunches and analytic leads, particularly in the early-mid stages of data collection and analysis.

It is interesting that we see a similar notion emerging across all the interviews which relates to participants ‘giving’ the researcher their time and their stories which could imply that the researchers are indeed ‘taking’ something from their participants. This comes across as a strong theme throughout this interview, that deserves further exploration. For example, [the participant] explains how participants are time poor due to the nature of their disability and that life for them is already ‘hard’, stating that ‘already by agreeing to be part of your project … they’re giving a lot’. She expressed gratitude at several points throughout the interview but also some associated guilt. This is a newer idea, and one we have not really experienced first-hand. How do other researchers feel about ‘taking’ from their vulnerable participants? (Excerpt from theoretical memo #4).

The active involvement of two research practitioners also facilitated the co-generation of rich data through spontaneous probing during the interviews. Probing was sometimes unexpected because individual theoretical proclivities and diverse research backgrounds determined if/when a researcher might (or might not) seize an opportunity to probe. This is significant for two reasons. First, it highlights an implicit flexibility in the co-interviewing model, whereby the pursuit of potentially obscured issues is enhanced. In other words, overlooked, yet potentially significant leads are more likely to be given attention when this technique is adopted. It also allows for clarification, as evidenced in the interview excerpt below.

Interviewer 1: So, following on, how about ethics? Did ethics ever flag … were there any red flags that came up during the ethics process or the proposal? Other students have raised this as an issue.

Participant: No … I had a built-in distress protocol for my participants but nothing for me. The only thing I had was about doing research in public places … And at my talk, before I handed in my research proposal, there were a number of people in my audience who were concerned about my safety doing interviews with men, as in my physical safety.

Interviewer 1: Okay.

Interviewer 2: So, just your physical safety, then?

Participant: Yes. That’s it, though. So, in terms of the things people raised, there was nothing really about emotional wellbeing at all. And I know that that’s different at different universities. (Excerpt from interview #5).

Moreover, co-interviewing contributed to a richer generation of qualitative data by doubling efforts for ‘real time’ constant comparison methods to inform how probing questions were constructed. For example, prefacing questions with counter perspectives, especially perspectives informed by developing codes and concepts from previous interviews, provided a theoretical means of enacting constant comparison during each interview. Co-interviewing also supported reflexivity within and between the researchers. Our intimate working relationship meant that we were invited to share and communicate our own subjectivity in a safe, non-judgemental space (Elliott et al., 2012). We naturally moved in and out of what Morrow terms as ‘mirroring’ and ‘devil’s advocate’-type roles (Morrow, 2005, p. 254). Critical discussion and sustained reflection enabled us to pose questions and propose alternative interpretations of the data, throughout data collection and analysis.

Active Debriefing and Enhanced Support

Talking privately about sensitive subjects, or with vulnerable populations, may compromise the emotional well-being of the researcher (Velardo & Elliott, 2018). Having two interviewees present meant that we were able to actively debrief following the interview and support each another. The process of active debriefing is a distinct strength of the co-interviewing approach, especially if the qualitative work being undertaken is likely to cause distress. While this cannot always be anticipated, projects that do engender a high possibility of emotional angst and sensitivity (e.g. researching death, dying, violence, suicide), can leave researchers feeling emotionally drained (Dickson-Swift et al., 2007). Given the emotional demands on researchers conducting sensitive research of this nature (Mallon & Elliott, 2020), a co-interviewing strategy could be used to promote active debriefing and facilitate catharsis, where necessary. In our experience, the emotional work that researchers undertake in the field can be draining and may expose personal vulnerabilities and concerns. Co-interviewing thereby offers a ‘safety net’ for all stakeholders to be moved by the stories they hear and feelings they feel, representing a powerful example of emotional support that cannot be achieved in a traditional one-to-one interview approach.

Bridging Divides

The presence of diverse researchers in an interview could foster greater empathy, or ‘insider’ connection, for example, in cases where gender might impede or enhance the development of rapport with participants (e.g. domestic violence, family violence, sexuality, women’s health). In one interview, we noticed that the participant tended to direct most of her responses to SV (female), even when SE (male) posed questions. This was an interesting observation, given the focus of the interviewee’s doctoral research was on gendered violence. One possible explanation is that the participant felt more at ease sharing her difficult stories with another woman, even albeit subconsciously. Beyond gender, co-interviewing might magnify the voices of participants who are marginalised by virtue of other aspects of identity, such as sexuality, race or language. Burnard (2004) and Redman-Maclaren et al. (2014) both assert that co-interviewing can provide benefits for culturally focused research, where including a cultural ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ researcher can facilitate interpretation, understanding, and bridge cultural divides. Indeed, in their research with Punjabi women with rheumatoid arthritis, Sanderson et al. (2013) observed some benefits of including a co-researcher in the interviews, who provided language interpretation, where participants did not have sufficient proficiency in English. Namely, they highlighted participants’ ability to discuss their well-being more openly and assert more control within the interview, in the presence of a co-researcher who was somewhat culturally connected. Reflecting upon our own experience, benefits of co-interviewing might be observed in multidisciplinary teams where ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ researcher roles may assist researchers move in and out of contextual and temporally specific spaces, through implicit connection and identification with an ‘insider’ researcher. At the same time, being an ‘outsider’ may be beneficial for questioning ‘the obvious’ or potentially fraught ideas.

Considerations

Power

In qualitative research, power is inherently understood to be held by the researcher (Råheim et al., 2016). At first glance, then, having two interviewees present in a qualitative interview could reasonably exacerbate power imbalance, by virtue of outnumbering. This possibly should not be ignored and must be closely considered in any study. However, as posed by Redman-Maclaren et al. (2014), we were interested in whether co-interviewing could in fact redistribute power away from the single interviewer, by enhancing the co-construction of knowledge. In our experience, this was indeed the case, as there were times when both researchers made observations, or posed questions, that the other had not considered. It is thereby possible that co-interviewing could be a powerful resource to be used to better understand participants’ stories.

Our experience also indicates that assumptions about power within a co-interviewing model are potentially overestimated because interviewees demonstrated a tendency to find an ally (or, as proposed earlier, an ‘insider’). This, at the very least, seemed to rebalance the power distribution within the interview. There is also the possibility that the interviews themselves served a therapeutic purpose, given they provided space for our participants to share their intimate and highly emotional stories (Newton, 2017). We consciously shared our own views and experiences on the subject matter, and we invited participants to suggest practical strategies that could be adopted by the university to support their emotional well-being. In these ways, co-interviewing might reasonably serve to shift the power dynamic within an interview, through the empowerment of participants.

The relationship between the interviewers also comes into play. While this was the first time we had collaborated on a research project, we had previously studied together as doctoral candidates, meaning we had established a personal and professional relationship, and entered the interviewers as ‘equal’ players. If co-interviewing is employed by researchers in a supervisory context (e.g. doctoral student and supervising Professor), problems surrounding power could possibly emerge if the supervisor asserts dominance within an interview. Similarly, a doctoral student with minimal interviewing experience may defer to the more experienced researcher to lead the facilitation of the interview and probe less frequently if they are uncertain about how and when to interject. Consequently, there is a possibility that researchers could miss opportunities to advance their interviewing skills and meaningfully contribute to the rich generation of qualitative data in the manner that co-interviewing promises. Supervisors working with doctoral students therefore need to consider if co-interviewing will ultimately work to exacerbate or fairly redistribute power and strategise ways in which to manage power between the research team. This might reasonably include careful reflection on pilot/early interviews and collaborative memo writing or journaling throughout the study.

Increased Participant Effort

Prior to commencing data collection, we actively reflected on the interview room set-up to avoid creating an ‘us versus them’ environment. One practical solution was to ensure that both interviewers were not seated too closely together – a feature that we now consider a fundamental aspect of the collaborative co-interviewing method. However, spacing the seats within a co-interviewing approach inevitably requires the participant to expend more energy and effort to divide their attention between two researchers. Our initial observation was that, on most occasions, participants actively sought to divide attention between both researchers, through eye contact. Increased participant effort is therefore inevitable, but potentially rationalised by recent public health policies that require 1.5 m of physical distancing in the wake of the pandemic. Alternatively, online platforms such as Zoom© provide one avenue which could be explored to ease the physical effort of interview participation.

Resources and Logistics

Collaborative co-interviewing ultimately increases the logistical and resource demands for researchers. The use of co-interviewing requires the researchers to facilitate the interviews rather than contracting the interview work to research assistants, as is commonplace in many institutions. It is therefore important to consider the complexity of managing three schedules (two active researchers and an interview participant) and committing to the subsequent organisation and facilitation of the interview, the debriefing process, and the theoretical work that follows. The time investment in this regard might be difficult to justify in contemporary research environments which are characterised by rapidly increasing productivity pressures (Berg & Seeber, 2016). Furthermore, co-interviewing may, at least on paper, appear difficult to justify in competitive grant funding applications and tenders. However, we argue that in many cases, qualitative research quality and the theoretical generation of ideas could be enriched by using co-interviewing. To ensure that collaborative co-interviewing is not unnecessarily abandoned for logistical and resource reasons, researchers should closely consider if their intended project outcomes could be enhanced by this technique.

Summary

In our experience, collaborative co-interviewing is a promising data collection technique that is worthy of further consideration in qualitative social research. This paper adds to the limited literature on co-interviewing and reinforces previous authors’ suggestions that having multiple interviewers present can maximise probing opportunities (Rosenblatt, 2012), redistribute power (Redman-MacLaren et al., 2014) and increase theory development (Bechhofer et al., 1984). Further, it is ours and others’ experience that co-interviewing can ultimately bring diverse perspectives and worldviews to qualitative interviews and subsequent data analysis, thereby demonstrating potential to enhance the research process (Redman-MacLaren et al., 2014; Rosenblatt, 2012). In our study, the co-interviewing experience proved to be beneficial in terms of enhancing research atmosphere and supporting active debriefing. We also found that co-interviewing facilitated social support, learning and connection between the researchers and participants. Importantly, our work draws attention to several factors that need to be closely considered by researchers who are interested in adopting this approach, in relation to managing power dynamics, participant well-being and available resources. Interested researchers should carefully consider these and other relevant matters in their research planning and practice.

Our combined insights from this study provide an important contribution to understanding this emerging area of research and raising questions for future exploration. We foresee additional benefits for research practitioners who use collaborative co-interviewing in specific contexts. One example is emotionally laden work, when researcher well-being could be compromised due to the nature of the study itself (Mallon & Elliott, 2020). We also acknowledge a lack of recent research on this technique and welcome future empirical work that systematically examines the effectiveness and merit of this approach in practice. Further research should seek to understand how co-interviewing dynamics play out for participants and researchers alike across diverse disciplines.