CARRIE E NEAL: CURIOSITY TO CONVERSATION: A HANDS-ON LAB FOR SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW DESIGN

WEDNESDAY 22 JULY, 14:00 - 14:55

Lecture Room 1

Semi-structured interviews are one of the most powerful, flexible tools for understanding people’s lived experience—but they’re often underdesigned and underutilised. In this 60-minute practical workshop, we will explore how to design and conduct semi-structured interviews that generate rich, reliable insight for real-world research and practice.

Drawing from social science, ethnographic, anthropological, and oral history traditions, we will unpack the core elements of strong interview design: clarifying your inquiry focus, crafting an interview protocol, sequencing questions, building rapport and trust, and following emergent threads without losing your throughline. We will also look at common pitfalls—overleading, over-structuring, and treating participants as “subjects” rather than meaning-makers—and how to avoid those.

This session is hands-on and welcoming to a range of experiences. You are invited to bring a research question or project you are already working on, something you’re thinking about starting, or simply your curiosity and attention. There will be time for discussion and structured reflection. You will leave with concrete information on designing your interview protocol, framing a research question/intention, or next steps in your own work—if you want to.

By the end of the workshop, you will have a clearer understanding of when semi-structured interviews are the right tool, how to design them with rigour and care, and how to align your methods with the communities and contexts you are engaging.