Interview Schedule Rehearsal

To prepare for interviews, students practice using their interview schedules in mock interviews with peers. 

Before the activity, the students prepare interview schedules for their research projects. The professor puts the students in pairs, based on similarity of research topics. 

In class, the students take turns being the researcher and the respondent in a mock interview or role play. After the activity, each pair discusses how the interview schedules can be improved. 

The goal of the activity is to have students improve their interview schedules and practice interviewing before collecting data in the field. In reviewing a written interview schedule students often have a hard time anticipating what questions might be awkward, what kinds of answers they might elicit, or how the interview is going to flow (ordering of the questions). The professor should talk to students ahead of time about these issues, so that the "respondents" have thought about how best they can help the "interviewer" revise the interview schedules.