I prepared the interview questions and suggested four people to interview, based on who was available and who seemed at ease talking to a relative outsider. I hoped that people would feel that they could criticize my actions, although [the interviewer] suggested that...people would still feel constrained because of my position as coordinator. To address this, [the interviewer] had the interview tapes transcribed, collated the transcripts, and did not name the people in the collation. (p. 166)
Marina Niks and her colleagues (Niks et al., 2003) interviewed adults with little formal education to learn about their learning strategies:
We collaboratively designed one interview protocol. Although no two interviews were the same (as no two open-ended interviews ever are), much of the same content was covered at each site. There were some common questions including those related to an area where the participants wanted to learn more. We taped the interviews and took detailed notes from the tapes, often marking areas of interest to come back to later. (p. 11)
A group interview involves participants who come together to respond to a research focus or questions. Participants are able to interact with each other and build on each other's responses.
Some researchers consider focus groups as a particular form of group interview. Originally used in marketing, the approach is also used to collect data for program planning, marketing and evaluation of educational services (Einsiedel, Bron, & Ross, 1996). The terms group interview and focus group are sometimes used interchangeably in research in practice.
You might use a group interview approach when