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This collaborative paper presents three case studies on four scholars' experiences with remote data collection. The authors highlight the challenges and strengths of online qualitative research across three disparate projects: an interdisciplinary exploration of matrilineal heritage, an examination of Irish women's sexual identity and an investigation of dress practices among Tz'utujil-Maya.

Qualitative researchers traditionally go into the field to explore and understand social phenomena. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, while people faced the daily realities of a worldwide crisis from within their homes, remote data collection became a necessary strategy to pursue knowledge. As a result, researchers adapted to unknowns regarding recruiting, scheduling, technology, interviewing and analysis.

Participant and researcher experiences during the adaptation to remote interviewing yielded important lessons on research strategies.

Outcomes from these studies highlight the potential value of online data collection alongside the necessity for flexibility in designing and conducting qualitative research.

This paper contributes to a dialogue about the psychoanalytic concept of free association and its application in the context of qualitative research interviewing. In doing so, it also adds to wider discussion regarding the relationship between clinical psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and qualitative research.

Critical consideration of different perspectives on the application of free association in the qualitative research interview, extending earlier work addressing this issue. Differences and similarities in the way the concept of free association is articulated are examined regarding its framing in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.

Whether researchers see themselves as borrowing, applying or drawing inspiration from free association, there is scope for muddling distinct ways of viewing it as it is conceived in psychoanalysis.

Considerations are outlined for researchers interested in psychoanalytically informed methods to be mindful of.

People with intellectual disabilities commonly come into contact with the criminal justice system as victims, witnesses or suspects. Their intellectual disabilities may make them disadvantaged in relation to all components of the criminal justice system, including police interviews, fitness to plead and stand trial, capacity to give evidence in court, and issues to do with criminal responsibility and sentencing. The focus in this paper is on police interviews and the capacity of adults with intellectual disabilities to give evidence in Court. Research into the types of vulnerability seen by people interviewed by police have focused on interviewees' understanding of the Oath and their legal rights, suggestibility, acquiescence, compliance and perceptions of the consequences of making self‐incriminating admissions. The essential components of any interview and testifying in court require that the person can communicate effectively and give reliable answers and accounts of events. Research into police interviews has highlighted the importance of taking into account the interviewee's vulnerabilities and providing appropriate support, and suggests a more humane approach to interviews and when vulnerable people testify in Court.

This article describes a course in interviewing skills for local authority auditors. It represents a further development of the “Bradford Approach” to interviewing skills training developed by Randell et al for appraisal interviewing and subsequently extended to include grievance interviewing by Gill. As such, it relies heavily on the notion that successful interviewing depends upon a number of precise behavioural skills which can best be acquired through practice in role plays. The course was developed at the request of the Internal Audit Section of Humberside County Council, who felt that existing courses for auditors did not provide adequate training in interviewing skills.

It has been known for many years that the selection interview is often a far from perfect instrument. However, the unabated popularity of training courses in the selection interview is only one of many indications that managers have no intention of abandoning its use. Given this, it is obviously very important that such training be designed to be maximally effective. This question of the effectiveness of interview training has been investigated as part of an ongoing research programme on the selection interview which is being carried out at Heriot‐Watt University. Both our research findings, and our practical experience of running interview courses ourselves, have led to the development of a new approach to interview training which we have called individual‐centred training. This article describes the origins and basic principles of individual‐centred training for interviewers.

The reliability and validity of decisions on selection, placement, appraisal and promotion made in employment interviews are questioned. The article concludes that a bias is established early on in interviews and this is followed by a favourable or an unfavourable decision. Unfavourable information has a greater influence on interviewers. They seek information to support or refute their hypotheses whereby information that contradicts a hypothesis is ignored.

Project INISS was established on July 1st 1978 with a grant from the Department of Health and Social Security, and completed its work in October 1980. The aim of the project was to evaluate a number of small‐scale experimental innovations for the improvement of information services in social services departments. Three interviewing techniques were used: one to one, group and telephone interviews. This article describes these methods and offers guidelines for their suitability in particular situations.

The interview is still the main tool in selection, and rather ironically the pressure put on users of psychological tests by the Sex Discrimination and Race Relations Acts may lead to even more emphasis being placed on interviews—despite the questions raised about their effectiveness. The research literature on interviewing is substantial and covers a wide range of variables. Strangely, however, one element of the interview situation has scarcely been touched by this research and that is the interviewee. The picture one gets from most studies is that of an inert lump of material being placed in front of the interviewers for them to respond to—the candidate is simply a passive source of information, and the real interest is in how the interviewers go about eliciting and processing this information. Some researchers even dispense with real candidates altogether, preferring to use written pen‐pictures which the “interviewers” assess.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how employers can get the best results from job interviews.

This paper considers the relative merits of structured interviews, behavioral interviews, experience-based interviews and situational interviews.

This paper explains that each type of interview has its place, dependent on the type of job to be filled.

It is revealed that proper preparation by employers can help them to get the most suitable candidates.

This paper reveals how employers can learn to conduct effective interviews that produce reliable results.

This paper aims to widen knowledge of and explore how convergent interviewing can be used to identify key issues within an organization.

This paper introduces the convergent interviewing technique and describes the method of selecting the interview subjects. The construction of a round of interviews is explained. The content of the interviews is described and the particular probing nature of the questions demanded by the convergent interview process is explained. The ways to analyze the full set of interviews for groupings or categories is also described. The case study example of a broad research question about influences on work behaviors in a local government council is used to illustrate the convergent interviewing technique.

The key issues revealed by using the technique can be subsequently used for a variety of research and consulting purposes and settings. Convergent interviewing is an effective research method, which conserves resources.

Convergent interviewing enables researchers to determine the most important and/or key issues within a population rather than a full list of issues in an organization or barriers to change in a particular organizational context.