UCL Learning Portfolio

This course is designed to be a practical, hands-on learning environment for students who are undertaking qualitative interviews as part of their doctoral study. The course is particularly suited to those in their first or second year, as we cover elements of planning and design. The students will learn about general approaches to asking questions, including topic guide design, tools such as vignettes and photographs, as well as interviewing techniques such as active listening. Based on previous feedback, we have kept the course very practical with lots of interactive content. 

There are two parts to this session:

PART ONE: Theory

•    Introduction to qualitative research and interviewing

•    The principles of interviewing for research

•    Reflexivity and influence

PART TWO: Practice

•    Development of interview questions and topic guides

•    Prompting, active listening and non-verbal elicitation

•    Interviewing in pairs

By the end of this course you will be able to: 

•    Understand the role of interviewing in qualitative research

•    Begin to think reflexively

•    Phrase interview questions

•    Design topic guides

•    Begin interviewing for research.

Recommended for first- or second-year PhD students (or full time equivalent) who are planning an interview study, or research staff doing qualitative interviews for the first time.