The Importance Of Conducting Interviews

3.1 Introduction The method chosen to address the research question which homesickness is associated with changes in L2/L3 usage in a study abroad context was an interview. Conducting interview can be regarded as the most suitable way to collect the data based on personal experiences such as studying abroad. Seidman (2006) noted “When interviewers want to hear more about what a participant is saying, they should trust that instinct. Interviewers should ask questions when they feel unsatisfied with what they have heard.” (p.82-83) This process allows us to access valid data, in other words, the acts of following up, asking for clarification, seeking concreate details, and requesting stories lead us to rich and deep data. (Seidman, 2006)

The interviewer may inadvertently influence the subject by suggesting a desired answer: “The researcher may also inadvertently provide clues through changes in tone of voice, raising eyebrows, or other forms of body language.” (Op. cit. p.115) Other than inducing interviewee with certain behaviours described above, time-consuming is also taken as disadvantages of interviews. The reason why conducting interviews consumes time can be explained with the importance of listening and tolerating silence. (Seidman, 2006) “Listening is the most important skill in interviewing. The hardest work for many interviewers is to keep quiet and listen actively.” (p.78) “there is a delicate balance between jumping in too soon with a question and waiting too long in silence. There are no rules of thumb here. It is important to give your participant time to think, reflect, and add to what he or she has said.”

After conducting interviews, the interviewer is required to explain the state of the interviewee with the theory. In other words, he/she need to theorize structures and processes of the phenomenon such as why the fact happened, what kind of conditions made it happen, and which factors made it happen at the level of theories. The reason grounded theory approach was chosen was it assists the process of theorizing and categorizing collected data coherently and precisely. In order to analyze the date with grounded theory approach, at first, the date should be divided into a small group from the context and named to each group. Second, each small group will be re-categorized into some groups which have similarities. Last, some big groups will be theorized based on the theoretical data. Figure 2 is an example which shows one predicted data of the interview related to my research question. (Saiki, C.S., 2008) Each procedure of data analysis with grounded theory approach is as follows;

Property and Dimension

Property and dimension can be defined as the components of the matter. We would be able to know what the phenomenon or fact actually is by finding property and dimension. The data collected from interviews is not the theory, therefore property and dimension are necessary to theorize the data.