Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Interviews are increasingly a core part of life in commerce, the professions and in higher education, yet few people are aware of the many skills needed to be a good interviewer. Interviewing: A Practical Guide for Students and Professionals is an invaluable guide for all those looking to improve their interviewing skills, whether they are experienced professionals or beginners.

Written in an accessible style and based on a solid framework of theory and research, the book is packed with practical ideas and information about such issues as building rapport and interpreting both verbal and non-verbal responses. It includes chapters on interviewing children, adolescents, older people, people with disabilities, and interviewing across cultures and under situations of stress, as well as case studies, sample interviews, activities for students and chapter summaries.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. ix)
• 1 Interviewing: When and Why (p. 1)
• Introduction to the main features which characterise an interview
• Differences between interviewing and administering psychological tests and questionnaires
• Summary
• 2 The Many Types of Interview (p. 6)
• The many different contexts in which interviewing is carried out and the different methods and purposes served, from the simplest over-the-counter interaction to the most complex clinical interview
• Summary
• 3 The Interviewer-Respondent Relationship (p. 21)
• A dynamic relationship
• Building and maintaining rapport
• Interaction of cognitive, social and affective factors
• Introducing the use of recording equipment
• Interpersonal relationships in developing and closing the interview
• Empathy, sympathy and judgemental attitudes
• Ethical considerations
• Credentials of the interviewer
• Issues of anonymity and confidentiality
• Care of records
• Truth in representing the content and purpose of the interview
• Summary
• 4 Constructing the Questions (p. 34)
• Question formats
• Open-ended, multiple-choice, ranking
• Combining rating and ranking
• Combining written with oral questions
• Probing
• Wording the questions
• Bias
• Ambiguity
• Choosing the language style
• Idiom, joking, metaphors, euphemisms, colloquialisms, fashionable jargon
• Politeness norms
• Non-verbal cues
• Voice
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 5 The Structure of the Interview (p. 47)
• The interview as a whole
• The opening phase
• Establishing your credentials
• Introducing the methods to be used
• Obtaining factual data
• Development of the main themes and closing the interview
• Analysing the structure
• Simple structure--independent items
• Sequential items--chain structure
• Branching structure with channelling effects
• Sequential structure with simple feedback loops
• Branching structure with complex feedback loops
• Constellated structures
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 6 Interpreting the Responses (p. 59)
• The respondent's behaviour
• Inconsistency
• Non-cooperation
• Evasion
• Inaccuracy in recall
• Lack of verbal skills
• Conceptual difficulty
• Emotional state
• Bias
• Interviewer's interpretative skills
• Listening skills
• Speaking skills
• Conceptual skills
• Remembering
• Awareness of the developing structure
• Patience
• Probing
• The silent probe
• Encouragement
• Immediate clarification
• Retrospective clarification
• Immediate elaboration
• Retrospective elaboration
• Mutation
• Non-verbal messages
• General appearance, body posture, gestures, movement, distance, facial expressions, eye contact, smiling, voice
• Interpreting conflicting non-verbal and verbal messages
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 7 Interviewing in Research (p. 72)
• When to use interviewing
• Problems of post-hoc analysis of old data
• The theoretical basis
• Sampling
• The research design
• Preparing the interview schedule
• Preparing the response sheets
• Pilot studies
• Reliability
• Validity
• Training of interviewers
• Coding the responses
• Preparation for the analysis
• Various methods of qualitative analysis
• Use of interviewing in cross-cultural research
• Comparability of concepts
• Language and translation
• Cultural factors affecting interviewing in cross-cultural research
• Gaining access and giving feedback
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 8 Interviewing in Organisational Settings (p. 86)
• Personnel selection
• Problems of prediction of later performance, and the interview panel
• The performance appraisal interview
• The dismissal interview
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 9 Interviewing Children (p. 91)
• Putting yourself at the child's level
• Arranging the physical conditions
• Something for the child to do
• Talking to children
• Children's memory and understanding
• Children's imagination
• Rewards
• Duration of the interview
• Summary
• Activities for students
• Interview with Joshua
• 10 Interviewing Adolescents (p. 101)
• The complex social environment of adolescents and pressures on them
• Language of adolescents
• Appearance
• Non-verbal behaviour
• Effects of uneven growth patterns on responses
• Adjusting to the conceptual level
• Making use of complex structures
• The need to be treated as adults
• Summary
• Activities for students
• Interview with Adam
• Interview with Carlie
• 11 Interviewing the Aged (p. 115)
• Perception of agedness as relative
• Uses of the interview with old people
• Research with the aged
• Problems in interviewing
• Hearing loss, eyesight, language, mobility, use of equipment, privacy, memory loss
• Empathy and sympathy
• Patience
• Keeping to the structure
• Non-verbal reactions of the interviewer
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 12 Interviewing People With Disabilities (p. 121)
• Applications of interviews as sole source of information or in conjunction with intervention programs
• Acquired physical handicaps
• Congential disabilities
• Sensory disabilities
• Visual impairment
• Intellectual impairment
• Multiple disabilities
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 13 Interviewing Across Cultures (p. 128)
• The many aspects of interviewing affected by cultural factors
• Communication issues
• Using interpreters
• Cultural differences
• In politeness norms
• Names
• Dress
• Cultural differences in gender roles affecting interviewing
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 14 Some Difficult Cases (p. 136)
• Inevitability that some difficult cases will occur
• Recognising and coping with the problems
• The hostile respondent
• The anxious respondent
• Prejudice
• Acquiescence
• Status differences
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 15 Interviewing in Situations of Stress (p. 143)
• Situations of high levels of stress
• Reliability of eye-witnesses
• Children as witnesses
• Statement validity analysis, and criteria-based content analysis
• The cognitive interview
• Videotaping of children as witnesses
• Critical incident stress de-briefing
• Summary
• Activities for students
• 16 Overview (p. 149)
• A review of the book's content, with some evaluative comments on differences in the role of interviewing in research and professional practice
• References (p. 155)
• Index (p. 159)

Author notes provided by Syndetics