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Interview Protocol

See also:

Practical Procedures for Interviewing

Underlying Issues/Frameworks for Interpreting Interviewee Accounts

Interview Themes and Sections

To be pursued as appropriate across the 3 parts of the interview, using selected questions from the "bank" of ideas listed in the sample questions:.

  • Training/professional development /career structure
  • Assessment/accreditation for learners
  • The changing culture of ABE
  • Institutional context, including resources, physical spaces, management and technologies
  • Methods and Materials/Curriculum
  • Publicity
  • Funding Streams and methodologies
  • Specialist areas developed

PART 1: Your Personal Experience/Career

Establish personal chronology and career history. Do this using a "time line" mapped onto a piece of paper during the early part of the interview (or even ask the person to start doing this beforehand and bring it to the interview?). Probably easiest to establish the outline of this first and then fill in the detail gradually as the interview proceeds.

Sample Questions

PART 2: The Bigger Picture

How far (if at all!) does this person feel part of the bigger field of ABE? Do they have a strong sense of personal or professional identity with this field or do they feel on the margins of it? Do they feel well-supported by a bigger framework in the field or struggling alone, or against the tide? Awareness of the bigger context from wherever they are located in it.

From where they stand, how do they see the fit or mismatch between policy - practice - learners experiences/aspirations for literacy, numeracy and ESOL?
Why has policy been developed? What has driven these developments?

Sample Questions

PART 3: Key Moments and People

From where they stand, what have been the key moments and changes, key people who have influenced them, key organizations that have been important to them? [Add these to their personal timeline chart]

Have a card with a set of examples of initiatives and developments

  • e.g new accreditation
  • quality mark
  • incorporation of colleges
  • a media campaign
  • responding to a new group of students (claimants, or refugees, workplace, family lit, prisons)

Sample Questions

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