Group interviews

Most research interviews tend to be between a researcher and a single participant. However, it is also possible to interview a group of respondents together. The choice should be made on principled grounds”

“Group interviews, where several informants are interviewed together, have a number of advantages. Some students are much more comfortable talking to a researcher in pairs or groups, especially where they are interviewed with friends. Group interviews also allow the comments of one student to act as a stimulus for another, perhaps eliciting information that would not otherwise have been revealed...

The obvious disadvantage to this type of interview is that the responses that individuals give cannot be assumed to be the same as they might have offered if interviewed alone. ...

Generally, though, there is no clear preference for individual or group interviews. The former are clearly appropriate in some situations where the presence of other learners would ‘contaminate’ the data being collected. However, for a study of student learning from a perspective that viewed the learning process as primarily mediated through interactions within a class, a researcher might well feel that group interviews give more pertinent data.” (Taber, 2013: 276-277)

Individual interviews focus on the pure thinking, knowledge, experiences etc of the individual person (e.g. this might fit a study adopting a personal constructivist theoretical perspective)

Group interviews allow interactions (which may act as ‘authentic’ cues), and allow a focus on the construction of knowledge, and experience in the interpersonal ‘plane’ (e.g. this might fit a study adopting a social constructivist or a constructionist theoretical perspective).

“At times, it may be useful to interview students in pairs or groups of three or four. The advantages are that the students may act as catalysts to each other’s thinking and the group situation may make the students feel more at ease.” (Bell, 1995: 357)

Bell, Beverley (1995) Interviewing: a technique for assessing science knowledge, Chapter 15 of Glynn, Shawn M. & Duit, Reinders (Eds.) (1995) Learning Science in the Schools: Research Reforming Practice, Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp.347-364.

“There are numerous relationships that can exist between interviewee and interviewer in a one-to-one interview, from peer, friend, and counsellor to remorseless interrogator. In group interviews the situation is slightly different. The interviewer wants to allow free discussion and yet at the same time keep the thread moving in a particular direction so that the needs of the research design are met.”

(Watts & Ebbutt, 1987: 28-29)

Watts, M., & Ebbutt, D. (1987). More Than the Sum of the Parts: Research Methods in Group Interviewing. British Educational Research Journal, 13(1), 25-34.

Group interviews are sometimes considered synonymous with focus groups. These are really rather different techniques, although there is a continuum of possibilities between pure group interviews and focus groups.

Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

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