Face-to-Face Inquiry Methods

I enjoyed readings Knight's discussion on a researchers need to be able to empathize with the people they are interviewing and/or studying by appreciating their reasoning and perceptions. Upon reflection, however, if I were conducting face-to-face interviews on certain topics, it would be challenging at times to empathize with the interviewees and hide personal emotion from respondents.

As Knight discussed, the researchers physical emotions, tone in their voice, or wording in a questionnaire can certainly influence how a respondent will reply. If they feel they are being judged or that the interviewer is looking for a particular answer they may not express themselves to the fullest or most truthful. Certainly another point to consider for researchers using face-to-face methods is that if the study has more than one interviewer, it would be necessary to ensure that the questions were being read as similarly as possible by each interviewer. For example, if one interviewer emphasized certain words in a question, the interviewees could pickup on this and their answers may be inadvertently influenced by the way the question was read to them. As Knight clearly points out throughout the discussion in this chapter, the role and effect of the researcher can have significant impact on participants and their answers. Before conducting a research project using any method, the researcher needs to take care to ensure factors such as their personal bias or the way questions are asked do not outwardly impact the answers received. Using face-to-face methods to conduct researcher (with limited bias) is a true skill that would need to be learned by all researchers prior to commencing their questioning.