So as we saw, probing techniques are really important and

there's a huge range of different probing techniques.

But what is also important is the tactic you use while probing.

And there hasn't been much written about it, except for people writing.

Well, I did it my way and

my way was the best way, and we could pose a question with that.

Because there's a reflection, is really worthy in your own research,

but it's not so worthy in a how to interview book.

Because well, maybe my way is not your way, so

we should think about what does work.

And in many how to interview books, people write about rapport and

there's quite well-established notion that rapport is good.

And I think I truly believe that you need rapport otherwise,

an interview won't work.

And you need techniques, you need probing techniques.

And a good interviewer knows which techniques to use, but

also which techniques are available.

And a good interviewer varies using different techniques,

but there's not much written about the stand taken while probing.

Because there can be huge differences in different stance taken while probing.

And therefore, I did an experiment

to see what probing tactic works, and how does it work.

So what probing techniques did I distinguish?

I distinguished three different probing tactics and

the first is the accommodating tactic.

The accommodating tactic is the tactic that is usually trained to novice

interviewers.

I was trained in the accommodating tactic while studying.

And what does this accommodating tactic entails well.

You do not show you're very implicit on whether you accept or

not accept the answer of a respondent.

So, you left that in the vague.

What you show is that you want more information and you show some neutrality.

You show that you accommodate the informant,

the interviewee, the respondent to talk freely.

Tell me a story and I don't judge, that's what you show.

The second tactic is a more smiling tactic.

You see, the first had a neutral face.

The second tactic has a more smiling face, because this is what people usually do.

Many interviewers, they watch Oprah Winfrey, so they act like Oprah Winfrey.

So what they do is they start encouraging people saying, oh,

that's very interesting.

Oh, could you continue about that?

Can you explain it?

Or wow, cool!

So on, and so forth.

So people are using the rapport, but also using

the rapport in probing, using a very personal style that I call encouraging.

Then you take the answer for granted and you're pretty explicit about it.

Mm-hm, mm-hm, oh that must have been terrible for you.

Stuff like that.

The third tactic is a little different.

The third tactic from news interviews,

because this man looks a bit sad but it's more a challenging tactic.

In this challenging tactic, you do not take the answer for granted.

But you probe, and you challenge, and

you explicitly show that you don't take it for granted simply.

You just continue questioning the responder.

For instance, you just told me something else.

Wait a second!

First you said this and now you say that.

Could you explain it to me?

Why?

What do you mean with this?

I don't get it.

When you use synthesis like this,

you show that you take the answer serious, but not for granted.

And that's the third tactic I looked at.

These interviews were about social categorization, so

they were about categories people use.

Categories on Amsterdamers, categories of friends,

friendship and friends and acquaintances.

And the categories we use in the Netherlands for immigrants, [FOREIGN].

And so schematically it looks like this.

What are the effects of probing tactics on quality and content?

And how did I research this?

Well, I did it using this experiment.

I trained 12 interviewers to probe using an accommodating tactic.

I trained 12 interviewers to probe using an encouraging tactic.

And I trained 12 interviewers to probe with a challenging probing tactic.

And I expected beforehand that especially because

these interviews were interviews with people from Amsterdam.

So beforehand, I expected that the challenging tactic would work best.

Amsterdamers seem to be pretty direct, so they like to be challenged.

They like that an interviewer probes them challengingly,

at least that's what I expected.

Others would say no, no, not at all, not at all,

an encouraging interviewer would work way better.

Because this encouraging interviewer uses a lot of rapport and says oh, that's so

interesting and so on and so forth.

Whereas my former lecturers would say the accommodating tactic would work best.

Because you give space and opportunity to answer to the interviewee.

So what are the effects?

Well, this is just one of the many variables I used in order to check for

the amount of information.

And in this case for the broadness of the information,

the number of different predicates used with categories.

And as you can see it did not matter at all.

And this was not just for this variable for this indicator of quality.

It was for all indicators of quality and

all indicators of content it did not matter.

On average, there are hardly any differences in the effects of the three

different probing tactics on the quality and the content information.

Now that was a shock for me, real, a real shock.

Because these interviews are very idiosyncratic interviews, aren’t they?

Because it’s really dependent on the interviewee and

the interviewer, and the interaction between both.

And things go wrong in interactions all the time.

And interviewers have to repair stuff, and if they do this repairing,

this probing, if they do this challenging.

It would lead to a total different interview with a total different kind of

information.

I would guess, I guessed beforehand, but it wasn't.

And this means very, very, very good news for quality

researchers doing interviews, because it means that it doesn't really matter.

It doesn't matter whether you challenge someone,

whether you're encouraging, whether you're accommodating.

It doesn't matter at all.

Because as long as you use your techniques properly,

as long as you take careful rapport.

As long as you give the interviewees the opportunity to answer properly.

As long as you give space to give complete argumentation,

a complete answer, that's enough.

It doesn't matter whether you probe encouragingly or

whether you probe accommodatingly.

4.6 Probing tactics

定性研究方法

与讲师见面