The Keys to Key Informant Interviews

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The Keys to Key Informant Interviews

• SHIP Evaluation Staff

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Objectives

• Who is a key informant
• What is a key informant interview
• Purpose of a key informant interview
• Types of key informant interviews
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Preparing for the interview
• Conducting the interview
• Analyzing the data

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Who is a key informant?

• A person with unique skills or professional
  background on the issue being evaluated
• A person who is knowledgeable about the project
  and participants
• Someone who can help you better understand the
  project participants, their backgrounds,
  behaviors, and attitudes and any language or
  culturally relevant considerations

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Who is a key informant?

• Someone who can unlock key information for you!
  

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What is a key informant interview?

• Discussion between an individual respondent and
  an interviewer
• Can be via telephone or face-to-face
• Can range from informal chats to highly
  structured discussions
• Should be planned in advance
• Can have varying formats and approach

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Purpose of a key informant interview

• Collect qualitative, in-depth information from a
  wide range of people
• Collect information about a pressing issue or
  problem in the community
• Understand beliefs and motivations
• Understand sensitive topics
• Get the story behind a participants experiences

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Poll Question 1

• What type of information can you expect from key
  informant interviews?
• Community need and readiness
• Barriers to implementing a new policy
• Data on health behaviors
• Baseline obesity rates for your county
• How and if a policy is being enforced

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Types of Key Informant Interviews

• Informal, conversational interview
• General, guided interview
• Standardized, open-ended interview
• Closed, fixed-response interview

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Informal, conversational interview

• Informal conversation
• No predetermined questions
• Interviewer goes with the flow
• Spontaneous, open ended questions
• Helps discover broad information
• Points out important issues for more specific
  questions
• Useful in evaluations that are done early in the
  life of a program or planning of evaluation

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General guided interview

• Uses open-ended questions, with a specific
  purpose in mind
• Probes for broad information and depending on the
  respondents answers, the questions remain
  flexible
• Ensures that the same general ideas are collected
  from each interviewee
• Provides more focus than informal approach but
  still allows for adaptability

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Standardized, open-ended interview

• Same open-ended questions asked to all
  interviewees
• Little or no flexibility, regardless of the
  responses of the interviewee
• Faster interviews that can be more easily
  analyzed and compared
• Responses may be more limited

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Closed, fixed-response interview

• All interviewees are asked the same questions and
  asked to choose answers from among the same set
  of alternatives
• Questions can be closed and open-ended but with
  less probing
• Answers are limited and thus, easier to analyze
• Useful for those not practiced in interviewing

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Advantages

• Provides in-depth and rich information about a
  topic
• Gives an opportunity to explore causes of
  problems
• Relatively easy and inexpensive
• Allows interviewer to be flexible in
  administering interview
• Permits personal contact and provides an
  opportunity to build or strengthen relationships
  with important community stakeholders
• Allows interviewer to clarify information
• Can be used with all groups

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Disadvantages

• Conducting many interviews can be time consuming
• Relationship between evaluator and informants may
  influence responses
• Interviewee may distort information through
  biases
• May overlook perspectives of community members
  who are less visible
• Difficult to generalize results to larger
  population
• Volume of information is large and may be
  difficult to analyze

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Preparing for the Interview

• Who should be interviewed
• How many people should be interviewed
• Who will conduct the interview
• Interview format
• Interview location
• Writintg questions

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Who should be interviewed?

• Determine the target population
• Create a list possible informants
• Consider people have first-hand knowledge about
  community and the issue that is being
  investigated
• Chose key informants
• Select those who will be most informative and
  helpful rather than only interviewing people who
  are easiest to access
• Interview a mix of people-different ages,
  cultural backgrounds, organizational
  affiliations, education levels, etc.

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Poll Question 2

• When selecting key informant interviewees, you
  should
• Recruit anybody who is interested
• Ask your community partners for referrals
• Ask for recommendations from those early
  interviewees who have been particularly helpful
• Strive for homogeneity among interviewees

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Key to success

• Key informant diversity is important!!
• If only people of a particular background are
  interviewed the results may be one-sided.
  Interviewing key informants from a wide range
  brings out varying perspectives and underlying
  issues or problems.

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How many people should be interviewed?

• Qualitative interviews do not attempt to gain
  enough participants to allow for a hypothesis to
  be tested for statistical significance
• Appropriate number is judged by the researcher
• If the last interviews seem to only be repeating
  information, it might be a good time to stop

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Interviewer skills

• Knowledgeable on the subject matter
• Comfortable with meeting and talking to new
  people
• Ability to concentrate and engage attention while
  taking notes
• Flexible
• Attentive to non-verbal cues
• Strong communication skills
• Good listener
• Comfortable with silence
• Able to balance between formal and casual talk

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Location

• Interview should be in a place
• Provides privacy
• No distractions and easy to hear
• Comfortable
• Non-threatening environment
• Easily accessible for respondent
• Where there will be no interruptions

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Interview format

• Telephone
• May be most convenient
• Lacks personalized interaction
• Easier to take notes
• Face to face
• Require additional logistical planning
• Can ask more complex questions and more likely to
  get more detailed responses
• Can easily record

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Writing questions

• Prepare a discussion guide that contains
  important topics and questions
• Consider the sequence of questions
• Introductory
• Key
• Probing
• Ask some fact questions first and then follow
  with questions that ask about opinions and
  beliefs
• Design questions to yield in-depth information
• Ask about the present before the past or future
• Closing questions should allow respondents to
  provide any other information or recommendations

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Tips for writing questions

• Keep questions open-ended
• Ask neutral questions
• Ask questions one at a time
• Make sure the wording is clear
• Be careful with why questions
• Use probing questions such as
• Can you give me examples
• What changes have you noticed

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Poll Question 3

• Which of these would be a good key informant
  interview question?
• What are the current school policies related to
  school nutrition?
• With all the hard work the public health
  department has done to improve school foods,
  could you explain any positive changes you have
  seen?
• Do you think that the policy intervention has
  decreased unhealthy foods in your workplace?
• What are the barriers to implementing a tobacco
  free campus policy and how can we overcome them?

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Conducting an effective interview

• Setting the environment
• Communicating the questions clearly and
  consistently
• Recording the interview
• Staying on track

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Setting the environment

• Establish rapport with an introduction
• Be sensitive to interviewees responses,
  attitudes, and beliefs
• Show sincere interest in the person beyond just
  getting the information
• Do not interrupt
• Remain tuned in to the interviewees responses
• Begin with questions least in-depth

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Communicate questions clearly and consistently

• Give same explanations and directions to each
  respondent
• Try to read the questions in the same way for
  each respondent
• Make sure every question is asked
• Do not show personal feelings about the questions
  or expected response
• Provide transitions in major topics

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Staying on track

• Keep interviewees attention on the question
  being asked
• Probe for further information
• Review interview guide to make sure all questions
  were discussed
• Thank the interviewer at the end and leave on a
  positive note

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Taking notes

• Options
• -Interviewer or assistant facilitator
• -Audio or video taping
• -Combination of note-taking and tape recording
• Tips
• -Record main ideas, key phrases
• -Dont allow note-taking to disrupt the flow of
  conversation
• -Fill in gaps immediately after the interview

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After the interview

• Make sure the tape recorder worked
• Make any extra notes on those youve already
  taken
• Write observations made during the interview
• Record any surprises during the interview
• Send a thank you note

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Analyzing the data

• Create interview summary sheet
• Descriptive codes
• Cover themes, concepts, questions and/or ideas
• Note code on left hand margin of interview text
• Make a summary list of page where each theme
  appears
• Create codes after 8-10 interviews
• Storage and retrieval
• Presenting the data

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SHIP Examples

• Phase 1
• Phase 2

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In summary.

• Key informant interviews are perfect when
• Qualitative, descriptive information is needed
• Subject matter is complex
• Detailed information is sought
• Respondents are busy and/or high-status
• Subject matter is highly sensitive

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References and Resources

• PEAC Community Guide
• Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, USAID
  Center for Development Information and Evaluation
  http//pdf.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNABS541.pdf
• Tobacco control example http//tobaccoeval.ucdav
  is.edu/files/Data/11_Draft_Key_Informant_Interview
  _Rodeo_sponsorship.pdf
• http//www.healthpolicy.ucla.edu/HealthData/ttt_pr
  og24.pdf

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Questions??

• SHIP Research and Evaluation Staff Contact
  Information
• Sapna Swaroop
• SHIP Evaluation Coordinator
• sapna.swaroop_at_health.state.mn.us
• [phone]
• Joanne Moze
• CDC Research and Evaluation Fellow
• Joanne.moze_at_state.mn.us
• [phone]
• SHIP toll free phone number
• 1-800-222-2884