Different techniques can be used to collect data that will become information after analysis, the most common being documentary research, questionnaire-or interview-based surveys, and observation. Interviews, which are widely used in social sciences, are also employed in other professional fields such as consulting, for example.
The aim of this document is to present the basic principles for conducting interviews, with a particular focus on semi-structured interviews. Nevertheless, much of the information will be equally useful in other data-collection situations such as questionnaire- or observation-based surveys.
Prerequisites
What is an interview?
Different types of interviews
There are three main types of interviews: structured, unstructured and semi-structured interviews.
- The structured interview is a type of interview in which the questions are worded and put to the interviewees in the same way. This interview technique is useful for making comparisons within a sample, i.e. the group of people who are being studied. However, this type of interview makes it difficult to access the interviewees’ representations (their perceptions of a subject), as the questions strongly determine the extent of what the respondents can cover in their responses.
- The unstructured interview, in contrast, is a type of interview in which the interviewees can express themselves in response to a single open-ended question covering the issue at hand. The survey interviewer must therefore intervene as little as possible. This type of interview is useful for eliciting a life story but is much less effective for establishing comparisons within a sample because the discourse is not directed.
- The semi-structured interview is structured midway between these two techniques. This type of interview is neither totally closed, nor totally open-ended. For this type of interview, the interviewer follows a structured interview guide that provides a framework for conducting the interview. The use of open-ended questions and follow-ups gives the interviewee opportunities to develop an “in-depth” discourse. This is the most common type of interview.
The interview, a qualitative process
Rather than being a quantitative process, the interview enables the development of a qualitative process and promotes the expression of personal opinions and points of view. It is a method that complements a comprehensive approach. The interview is a useful tool when the interviewer is unfamiliar with the interviewee’s world of reference, or when he or she does not want to make an a priori decision about the internal consistency of the information sought. The interview is appropriate if the study focuses on individuals or a small group. To carry out a series of interviews, sufficient time needs to be allowed for the analysis, as post-interview processing requires time to ensure the optimal exploitation of all the interview content.
The purposes of interviews
Interviews solicit the production of a discourse on representations and practices and have two types of purposes:
- analyzing the meaning that actors attribute to their practices (experienced facts), events they may have actively witnessed, debates in which they are involved or that concern them due to their professional activity, their family life, their leisure time, etc.
- revealing value systems, normative benchmarks and interpretations of reality that guide actors and determine their positions. How do they make decisions or take action, and how do they justify themselves? How do they perceive (in terms of assessing the context around them) standards, individuals, or institutions, for example?
Interviews can achieve these purposes because they enable:
- the collection of individual testimonies and interpretations while respecting the interviewees’ personal frames of reference - systems of representations, opinions, attitudes, values or preferences.
- consideration of the context applicable to the individual interviewee - the survey situation - and establishing links between “personal facts” and collective issues.
An experience can therefore be informed by:
- an entire life, e.g. a biography as an experience of history;
- a fragment of life, i.e. a specific period in a person’s biographical journey: e.g. the start of married life as an experience of marriage, the start of professional life as an experience of work or the professional world;
- a social trajectory, e.g. the reconstitution of a professional career as an experience of downgrading, i.e. the loss of a social position; a drug addict’s career as an experience of deviance;
- a type of expertise, e.g. work as an experience of the factory world;
- a more diffuse knowledge stemming from acquired experience, e.g. the fact of being ill or close to an ill person confers a knowledge of the illness that is not on a purely medical level but also informed by learning and its appropriation (in other words, relating to its incorporation into daily life);
- a more specific problem, e.g. the use of a help system as an experience of the use of ICT in the professional world;
- a habit, e.g. the regulation of domestic tasks between spouses as an experience of gender relations.
Creating an interview guide
Prior to the creation of an interview guide
The interview must be prepared in advance in order to collect the data required to answer a question that has been asked. This involves defining the purposes of the data collection, formulating hypotheses, and presenting variables. It should be borne in mind that at this stage, the variables presented are proposals. These variables will be used to define the themes of the interview guide.
Defining the purposes
These purposes can be defined by the context in which the collection is organized, such as a research project, a controversy, or a service. In this situation, the purpose will be to answer a question that is not always highly formalized. It may be inspired by an intuition or a feeling but may also be the result of previous questions.
Conducting preliminary documentary research
Documentary research, which tends to be neglected, is nevertheless essential because it increases one’s expertise on the studied topic. It enables the gathering of meaningful information:
- in the societal field, especially via press reviews,
- in the research field, via literature reviews,
- in the industrial and R&D fields, via the state of the art.
- at the legal level, by studying the outputs of the legal system through case law - court decisions, and the legal literature - legal experts’ comments.
Defining the problematics
The problematics correspond to the formulation of the questions and problems raised by the subject. Problematization, the activity culminating in the problematics, is the “ability to bring out of the subject a series of interconnected questions and problems and to choose a relevant and fruitful angle of attack” (Report of the jury, CAPES certificate in Economics and Social Science, 1998).
Hypotheses are developed on the basis of these problematics.
Developing hypotheses
Hypotheses are proposals, to be confirmed or rejected, on whose basis the demonstration and the arguments will be developed.
Proposing variables
Variables are operational concepts. Some are independent, i.e. they influence behavior indirectly and provide help with understanding the phenomenon. However, they are unlikely to change the understanding of the phenomenon solely through their observation in the field.
Other variables are said to be dependent because they are likely to modify the understanding of the phenomenon, solely by their observation in the field.
To render these variables observable in order to explain a phenomenon, we need to define the type of information to be sought.
Structure of the interview guide
Introduction
The interview should be introduced. This is included in the guide, and must contain all the information discussed at the first meeting, i.e. presentation of the interviewer, the context of the interview, its purpose and its objective as well as its organization (duration, location).
Organization of the questions
The interview guide serves as a point of reference for the interviewer. The preparation and presentation of the interview guide should enable the interviewer to keep track of the progression of the data collection process. This guide is also designed to help the interviewer formulate relevant follow-ups (i.e. to be capable of responding to what the respondent says). In this way, it helps the interviewer to remain on the defined topic and to redirect the interviewee if he or she strays too far from this theme. This guide acts as a flexible interview plan. It must be sufficiently detailed without curbing the respondent’s expressiveness. The interview guide includes all of the topics to be explored. It must have a logical and coherent structure. It is important to avoid addressing two unrelated topics in succession. The interview guide can be organized by topic, with each new topic stemming from the previous one and organized into a hierarchy of main topics and sub-topics (specifications). This is described as a “funnel” structure, as the topics are covered from the most general to the most specific level while still being interlinked. The same funnel structure should be adopted for each topic covered. The interview guide should be organized in such a way as to ease interviewees into each topic and help them understand the logical sequence of the topics covered.
Conclusion
Before ending the interview, it is a good idea to include a final question such as “Do you have anything else to add?” or “Is there anything else you would like to talk about?” The interview should then be concluded. This conclusion should be included in the interview guide. It must specify how the interview will be followed up.
Contents of the interview guide
The interview guide should allow for the exploration of several dimensions, including those concerning:
The interviewee
This includes:
- socio-demographic characteristics (e.g. age, gender, income, family situation, place of residence, etc.)
- education and training
- career path
Please note: the level of detail of the information sought will vary according to the research question, justifying whether or not the interviewee should be encouraged to go into detail.
The activity
The aim is to get interviewees to provide a description of their activities. The specificity relates to the expression of this activity in their own words. As such, this “personified” expression differs (or should differ) from a stereotyped discourse that could be found in an institutional communication (e.g. in an information brochure). To this end, the interview guide should formulate questions enabling the acquisition of information relating to:
- the description of the activity;
- how it is organized;
- the interviewees’ motivations and objectives concerning the activity;
- the path followed by the interviewees in performing the activity, i.e. the manner in which they perform the activity;
Opinions
The aim here is to discover the interviewees’ representations of the activity by asking them about their perceptions of the activity, the meaning they ascribe to this activity, their feelings when carrying out the activity, and their expectations.
The context in which the activity is carried out
This involves examining this context on different levels:
- micro: the individual context and its relationship with the activity. Example: computer literacy for studying ICT use by adolescents.
- meso: the organizational context (company, family) and how it relates to the activity and networks of actors. Example: peer relations for studying ICT use by adolescents.
- macro: the socio-economic, political and cultural context and how it relates to the activity. Example: the development of new economic models in society (e.g. the collaborative economy) for studying ICT use by adolescents.
Activity-related interactions
This is a matter of obtaining information about the interviewee’s relationships with individuals or organizations while performing the activity.
Expectations concerning uses in the activity
This entails obtaining information about the expected results of the activity (i.e. about the activity itself and its impacts at the individual and social levels).
Information
We live in a society in which information has taken on fundamental importance. It is therefore important to examine the information produced during the activity, the information sought (its type and its source) and how it is processed (for what purpose). In sociology, this would mean focusing on how this information is transmitted between individuals and the representations that it conveys.
Form of the interview guide
It is important to formulate the questions for the guide in such a way that they lead the respondents to clearly describe a given situation.
The first proposal will encourage the respondent to produce a narrative describing his or her background; the second will elicit a terse response: “I am a doctor”, “I am an engineer”, “I am a project manager”.
Conducting the interview
Prior to the interview
Choosing the interview questions
The time of day and location of the interview may vary according to the type of questions asked and the characteristics of the sample of interviewees.
Time of the interview: it may be held during work time or free time (evening, weekend)
Location of the interview: it may be held in the interviewee’s home, at the workplace or in a public place.
Choosing the data-collection method
When the interview is conducted by only one person, and if permitted by the conditions (agreement of the interviewee, available transcription time, etc.), it is preferable and beneficial to record the interview in order to:
- have access to the entire content of what has been said;
- avoid the specific interpretations that note-taking induces, e.g. abbreviations and summaries;
- facilitate a more convivial interaction by putting the respondent and the interviewer in a real, face-to-face situation. In a note-taking situation, the respondent is constantly looking at the top of the interviewer’s head, and if the latter is using a computer, this barrier between interviewer and respondent may impede interaction.
Contacting the interviewee
Methods: the initial contact with the respondent can be made by mail, e-mail, telephone, or even directly in person
Content: this first contact should be as clear and understandable as possible. It should provide a minimum of information so as to avoid creating confusion, projection, rejection or enthusiasm that could skew the interview. It must contain four types of elements:
- a brief presentation of the interviewer;
- a presentation of the interview context, e.g. a research project, an industrial project, a service;
- a presentation of the subject (what are we going to talk about?) and the purposes of the interview. The respondent should have a clear idea of the interview topic. However, it is important to avoid saying too much. This could encourage self-censorship, with the respondent formulating preconceived ideas about what may be of interest to the interviewer based on his or her understanding of the research conducted. Formulas such as “I am interested in… “and “I want to show that… “, should therefore be avoided;
- a clarification of the administrative elements of the interview, such as its duration, the maintenance of anonymity, and the recording of the interview.
The ultimate aim of this initial contact is to arrange an appointment for the interview.
The structure of the interview during its performance
Introduction to the interview
The elements that introduce the interview guide are presented to the interviewee. The interviewee may receive many requests and may not remember all of the information relating to the interview that he or she has granted. A reminder can be provided at this time, and this is also an opportunity to provide reassurance (anonymity). This is essential to creating a climate of trust and putting the interviewee at ease.
Sequence of questions during the interview
Pacing the interview: the interviewer plays an essential role in managing the pace of the interview. When conducting the interview, the interviewee needs to:
- keep the interviewees’ responses on-topic (avoiding digression) while enabling them to develop their testimonies;
- accept periods of silence, which give the respondents sufficient thinking time in order to formulate their statements.
Concerning the interview guide: the interviewer should be able to conduct the interview without referring to the interview guide. Indeed, the interview guide should assist with structuring the interview but it is not intended to direct the discourse.
Complete familiarity with the guide is therefore required in order to obtain a discourse that has been freely formulated by the respondent, but which also responds to the research questions asked. The interviewer must therefore be able to adapt to the respondent’s discourse when conducting the interview, i.e. capable of formulating questions in direct response to the interviewee’s statements.
The interviewer is not obliged to follow a pre-established order as in a structured interview. His or her initial and follow-up questions are adapted to the interviewee’s discourse. The interviewer accompanies the respondents in their thinking and the manner in which they construct their discourse.
Concluding the interview
This is the moment to thank the interviewees for their time but also to explain how the interview will be followed up.
The content of the interview being conducted
Formulating questions
Conducting an interview is an exercise that requires practice. It is not always easy to get interviewees to think outside the box and abandon conventional discourse and stereotypes that facilitate their discourse and help to alleviate the stress of the interview situation.
Be sure to express yourself clearly and precisely. Any ambiguity in the discourse can lead to misunderstanding and cause discomfort, destabilizing the respondent and undermining the climate of trust.
Interviewees will gradually become more relaxed, at which point you should encourage them to keep providing their personal testimonies in order to avoid any tendency to fall back on a conventional discourse.
It is important to avoid:
- direct, personalized questions that could trigger evasive responses (example: “Do you experience difficulties in using ICT?”)
- inductive questions, i.e. questions worded in a manner that suggests the answer (example: “Do you use ICT to communicate with your friends?”)
- questions that elicit a “yes” or “no” response. Indeed, the literature has shown that interviewees are tempted to provide the positive response to such questions.
- references to personalities, such as a person in authority, as this could influence the interviewee’s response. (example: “What do you think about your teachers encouraging you to do online research as part of your school work?”)
- questions worded in such a way as to impose an approach to addressing a subject.
The vocabulary should be adapted to the context and to the interviewee. Two things should therefore be borne in mind:
- either avoid using overly technical terms,
- or, on the contrary, be familiar with the specific vocabulary to which the respondent refers.
Conversely, it is necessary to:
- ask interviewees to explain and describe their practices, what they do or think, how they represent things and experience them;
- ask interviewees to clarify the meaning of some of the concepts they use to ensure an identical understanding.
Follow-ups
A follow-up corresponds to an intervention by the interviewer in the form of a paraphrase or a comment on a statement previously made by the interviewee. This makes it a “responsive act” in which the interviewer reacts to the interviewee’s testimony (but without expressing any opinion). Follow-ups are not direct questions seeking to define the themes to be covered, and should therefore be incorporated into the sequence of the respondent’s statements. You need to learn how to place them. Mastering the use of follow-ups plays a key role in the acquisition of interview technique.
What is the aim of a follow-up ? Follow-ups are employed in order to focus on a specific point or remark made by the respondent and explore it further. Follow-ups are useful in encouraging interviewees to speak and in building their confidence. In this case, encouragement and incentives can be provided through body language (nods, smiles) or small utterances (“hmmm”, “yes, yes”, “sure”). Follow-ups can overcome the limitations of specific conversational conventions in which interlocutors may pretend to understand each other without this actually being the case. In a conversation, it is rare to ask your interlocutors to clarify their thoughts: allusions or hints may be sufficient. This is where an interview differs from a conversation and becomes more precise.
The different types of follow-up: do not hesitate to ask for clarification or to rephrase the answer, perhaps by illustrating it, to make sure that everything has been understood on both sides. The interviewer may therefore adopt different intervention strategies, each having specific effects on the discourse produced by the respondent.
- Echoed repetition: the interviewer repeats or rephrases, i.e. reproduces a word or a segment of a sentence, or a point of view expressed by the respondent.
- Personalized reflection: the interviewer repeats or reformulates, making specific reference to the interviewee, or to the terms that he or she has used. This process invites interviewees to elaborate on their discourse by revealing their opinions or feelings, e.g. respondent: “Women who do that are brave.”; interviewer: “Do you think they are brave?”.
- Mirrored intervention: the interviewer invites the interviewee to explain an attitude or a feeling expressed by intonation but not verbalized, e.g. “You hope that…”, “You fear that…”. -Rephrasing-summarizing: the interviewer indicates in a short phrase what he or she has understood in the interviewee’s testimony. This is a question of encouraging interviewees to continue (by showing them that they have been understood), to expand upon their testimony, or to correct it if required, e.g. “You told me that…” or “If I have correctly understood,…”.
- Supplementation: the interviewer may put forward conclusions stemming from the explanations proposed by interviewees to help them develop their reasoning or prompt them to confirm or correct the interviewer’s understanding of their testimonies, e.g. “I take it that…”.
- Specific interrogation: the interviewer asks the respondents a direct question related to what they have just said. This process should be rarely used because it puts respondents in a passive position and may encourage them to wait for questions to be asked.
Conducting the interview in the right form
The directivity of the interview should be relatively limited. The questions should therefore be open-ended. The interview is not an interrogation in which the respondent is forced to answer questions and provide information. It is therefore not simply a matter of collecting data (which could be found in institutional documents) but of discovering the respondent’s vision of this data. The interview is therefore an opportunity to determine interlocutors’ opinions, and to understand their points of view and their experience, in order to acquire the information required to understand their position on a debate, the question asked, and their engagement.
Too many questions, and above all, too many closed questions, will hinder the freedom of expression. The wording of questions should allow respondents to produce “discourse-responses” on the manner in which they act, perceive, and comprehend the data that we want to study, on the meaning they ascribe to it and how they categorize it. An overly stereotyped (institutional) discourse will indicate that the respondent does not think outside the box and remains in a comfort zone permitted by a discourse that has been written by others and which may reflect a vision that is accepted by others, and therefore legitimate. Care must therefore be taken to ensure that interviewees express their own rather than other people’s opinions. Follow-ups can therefore be used to regain control over a discourse that is becoming increasingly impersonal (through the use of “we”), or detached (through the use of “us”), instead of “I”..
Adopting the right posture during the interview
Taking the interaction situation into consideration
The interview is characterized by direct contact between the interviewer and the respondent: the respondent produces a discourse in situ, i.e. in the situation of interaction and meeting with the interviewer. The manner in which the interview is conducted depends largely on how this meeting unfolds between the interviewer and the respondent, so there is no prototype.
Resistance: several types of resistance may be manifested during the course of an interview. How can you identify them and how should you react?
- Resistance linked to the discursive process. During the interview, respondents are asked to talk about what they do. Respondents therefore construct their discourse by speaking, i.e. they shift from the procedural register (know-how) to the declarative register (knowledge). For respondents, the things they do are self-evident and obvious, but in an interview situation, respondents are put in the position of having to describe, clarify and become aware of a different perspective on what they do. This can cause resistance.
- Resistance linked to the interview environment. Not all representations can be formulated anywhere and under any type of circumstances (this has been called “the regionalization of representations”).
The conditions in which the interview is conducted may therefore be a determining factor in its success or failure.
The question of the interviewer’s and respondent’s positioning also arises: in an interview situation, the interviewer and respondent assign representations to each other relating to their respective hierarchical position, age, gender, social or professional status, which may have an impact on the interview situation.
However, each party can also use these characteristics during the interview to establish a posture of domination, or conversely, to assume the role of the dominated party.
Throughout the interview, it is important to ensure that a balance of power is maintained between the respondent and the interviewer. The interviewer must therefore adapt his or her discourse according to his or her perceptions of the interviewee, and in this way, strive to exert an influence according to the interviewee’s perceived personality and the interviewer’s own personality. A climate of trust should also be built up, for example, by stressing that this is not an examination or a test of knowledge but an exploration of the respondent’s position in relation to a given phenomenon.
With regard to detecting and managing contradictions and inconsistencies in the respondent’s discourse, it is essential to maintain a neutral posture when an inconsistency or contradiction is detected (refrain from making value judgements). However, when such a contradiction or inconsistency becomes apparent, the interviewer must assess, according to the interview situation, whether further examination would actually be beneficial. Care must be exercised in order to avoid damaging any personal rapport that has been established by highlighting a contradiction or inconsistency in the discourse. The respondent’s statement makes sense to him or her, even if the interviewer considers it to be an “aberration” or “irrational”. What is important is to seek out the origin and the background to the statement, rather than trying to convince the person that they are wrong.
Verbal and non-verbal communication
It is important to formulate open-ended questions in order to provide optimal opportunities for respondents to express themselves. The interviewer must adopt a neutral posture, in terms of both verbal (intonation) and non-verbal (grimacing, smiling, rolling one’s eyes) communication. The interviewer must also be able to control his or her own emotions (anger, amusement) in response to the respondent’s discourse. The interviewer must also be aware of the respondent’s emotions. In response to the sharing of secrets, outbursts of emotion or shyness, the interviewer will need to decide on the most appropriate reaction according to the interview situation, such as putting a stop to this tendency by changing the subject, or by giving respondents time to compose themselves. The interviewer must be empathetic without being partisan, and able to adapt to certain situations that may concern respondents, such as disability or serious illness. Depending on the interviewer’s perceptions of the interviewee, and of how the latter broaches such conditions, the interviewer may choose to avoid raising such issues or, on the contrary, to mention them in order to examine a specific question in greater detail.
Analyzing the interview
Once the interview has been completed, the next step is to transcribe, encode and analyze the data collected. During the transcription process, the entire content of the interview is reproduced in written form. This transcription should be as complete as possible, and should mention any silences, hesitations, repetitions, or speakers’ slips of the tongue.
Finally, this leads to the analysis. The interview can be analyzed chronologically, when analyzing a career path, for example. It can also be analyzed thematically when it is a question of highlighting cross-cutting themes common to the different interviews in order to compare them with each other. In this case, a coding phase involving the categorization of the collected information will precede the analysis.
The analysis must be carried out in such a way as to meet the objectives of the study, to confirm or refute the hypotheses put forward, and to validate the variables proposed or to bring out new ones. Indeed, in the context of semi-structured interviews, odd or new statements, which may be important for answering the question asked, may not have been considered prior to conducting the interviews.
Checklist for evaluating peers in an interview situation and for self-assessment
The following checklist can be used to determine whether all the elements required for the proper preparation, execution and analysis of an interview have been taken into consideration.
Concerning the interview guide
Ability to justify the themes covered by the interview guide
The creation of the interview guide included a prior objective-setting activity
The creation of the interview guide included prior work on problematization
The creation of the interview guide included a prior hypothesis-building activity
The creation of the interview guide included prior proposals of variables and information needing to collected in order to highlight them
Ability to produce a structured, logical and coherent interview guide
The interview guide contains a complete introduction
The interview has a logical and coherent structure from beginning to end
The topics and related questions refer to the variables defined upstream
Ability to produce an interview guide that enables the collection of a testimony and provides access to the survey situation
The questions develop precise knowledge of respondents’ profiles (socio-demographic data)
The questions enable interviewees to describe their personal contexts
The questions enable interviewees to describe their practices and the meaning they ascribe to them
The questions are worded in such a way as to prompt respondents to describe situations and clearly explain them
Les questions are worded in such a way as to prompt respondents to express their opinions freely and comprehensively
Concerning the interview process
Ability to gather information without directing the discourse
The interviewer has contacted the respondent prior to the interview in order to agree on the conditions for it to take place (date, place, time, etc.)
The interviewer presents the interview in a clear and comprehensive manner
The interviewer prompts respondents to elaborate on their testimonies (defining terminology and practices)
The interviewer prompts respondents to clarify allusions or insinuations
The interviewer does not assume that respondents have specific knowledge (observed during follow-ups and questions)
The interviewer sets aside any preconceived ideas he or she may have concerning the phenomenon covered by the interview (observed during follow-ups and questions)
The interviewer sets aside his or her own knowledge of the phenomenon covered by the interview (observed during follow-ups and questions)
The interviewer invites the respondents to go beyond received ideas and common stereotypes
The interviewer speaks less than the respondents
The interviewer asks short and clear questions
The interviewer asks open-ended questions
The interviewer avoids direct questions
The interviewer concludes the interview properly
Ability to conduct a coherent interview
The interviewer is fully conversant with the interview guide
The interviewer invites respondents to address all the topics covered by the interview guide
The interviewer invites respondents to elaborate on the topics discussed
The interviewer manages to adapt to the respondents’ discourse in order to address all of the topics covered by the interview guide
The interviewer allows respondents to settle into the topic at hand while avoiding digression
The interviewer shows respondents that there is a purpose to be achieved (the questions are focused on the purpose of the interview)
Ability to control the situation
The interviewer redirects respondents if they wander off-topic (avoiding excesses but providing sufficient opportunities to talk)
The interviewer listens to respondents and does not cut them off
The interviewer gives respondents time to think and pause for breath
The interviewer is able to follow-up issues (rephrase questions)
The interviewer can successfully handle interaction-related issues (shyness, volubility or manipulation on the respondent’s part)
The interviewer is able to create a climate of trust
The discussions are conducted on a level that is comfortable to both the interviewer and the respondent
The interviewer maintains control over the dynamics of the interview
The interviewer conforms to the specified length of the interview, as scheduled and announced to the respondent
Concerning the analysis of the interview
The interviewer listens to the recording of the interview in order to produce a complete transcript or to enable him or her to complete the notes taken in situ
The interviewer identifies the key information in the respondent’ discourse
The interviewer organizes the information gathered during the interview into topics
The interviewer structures the information according to the variables proposed prior to the preparation of the interview guide
The interviewer verifies that the information gathered during the interview enables him or her to address the initial problematics and to confirm or invalidate the proposed hypotheses