Draft an interview guide with open and focused questions

A semi-structured interview guide has to do two things at once. It must keep the conversation connected to the study aim, yet leave enough space for a participant to describe an experience in terms the researcher did not predict.

That balance is easily lost. A guide can become a rigid questionnaire read aloud, or it can become a list of broad prompts that produces interesting but unusable conversations. The practical task is to make the guide focused without making every answer predetermined.

This resource shows how to move from a qualitative study aim to topic domains, neutral open main questions and optional responsive probes. It also provides a leading-question audit and a pilot-change log. It does not replace the ethics application, participant information, consent process, safeguarding plan or interviewer training required for your study.

Keep three levels of question separate

The research question states what the study seeks to understand. An interview question is wording used with a participant to generate relevant material. A probe is an optional follow-up used when clarification, detail or an example would help.

These levels should be connected, but they are not interchangeable. A research question such as “How do postgraduate students experience an optional peer writing circle?” would sound formal and abstract if read verbatim to every participant. A conversational question such as “Walk me through a typical session from your point of view” is easier to answer, but its place in the guide should still be justified by the study aim.

An interview guide is also not simply a questionnaire with longer response boxes. Semi-structured interviewing normally combines a consistent set of domains with flexibility in order, wording and follow-up. Kallio and colleagues’ methodological review of semi-structured interview-guide development identifies five broad phases: establishing the prerequisites, using previous knowledge, formulating a preliminary guide, pilot testing and completing the guide. That sequence is a useful reminder that question writing is only one part of guide development.

Define what “focused” means for this study

Focused does not mean closed, leading or narrow enough to produce only one acceptable answer. It means that the guide is bounded by a defensible study purpose.

Before drafting individual questions, write a one-sentence study aim and identify the participants whose experience can address it. Check the relationship between the research question, recruitment criteria and planned analysis. If the study aim concerns students’ experience of peer discussion, a guide dominated by questions about grade changes has drifted toward a different claim.

Use existing literature and relevant contextual knowledge to identify areas that the interview may need to cover. Do not use that reading to pre-fill the participant’s account. A domain such as “access and decision to attend” is a planning category, not evidence that access was difficult.

If your research question is still unstable, first plan a focused research question. The interview guide cannot repair an aim that is too broad, internally inconsistent or unrelated to the selected participants.

Build domains before polishing questions

A compact domain map makes omissions and repetition easier to see. For each domain, record why it matters to the study aim, one main question and a small bank of optional probes. The main question should be understandable without a long explanation. Probes should support responsive follow-up rather than require the interviewer to ask every line.

The following worked example is wholly fictional. Riverside Learning Centre, its programme, participants and all pilot findings are invented for illustration. The example does not provide evidence that writing circles are effective.

The fictional study aim is: to explore how postgraduate students experience an optional peer writing-circle programme during one semester.

On a narrow screen, scroll the table sideways to read every column.

The table is a design trace, not a script. An interviewer would not mechanically ask every probe. “Can you give me an example?”, “What happened next?”, “What did that mean to you?” and “Was that typical?” become useful only when they fit what the participant has said.

Keep factual or administrative checks separate from substantive experience questions. It can be reasonable to confirm a role, date or attendance category with a closed question. The important distinction is that the main qualitative questions invite accounts rather than force them into categories chosen in advance.

Audit questions for assumptions and pressure

A question can be grammatically open while still directing the participant. “Why was the supportive programme useful?” invites explanation, but it assumes that the programme was supportive and useful. Double questions, evaluative labels and requests for agreement create similar pressure.

Read every draft question as if you disagreed with its premise. Ask whether a participant could reasonably answer “nothing changed,” describe a mixed experience or reject the category in the question.

On a narrow screen, scroll the table sideways to read every column.

Neutral wording does not require emotionally flat interviewing. An interviewer can listen carefully, acknowledge difficulty and ask for clarification without signalling which conclusion the study prefers. Interviewer training should include practice in noticing agreement-seeking, finishing participants’ sentences and asking a new question before a response has developed.

Put accessible questions before more demanding material

An early question should help the participant enter the topic using familiar experience. Ask for a routine, context or recent example before requesting interpretation of an abstract concept. In the fictional guide, “Walk me through a typical session” is usually easier than “What consequences did the programme have?”

A workable order often moves through:

1. a brief, approved opening and any necessary recording or consent confirmation;
2. accessible context-setting questions;
3. concrete descriptions of events or practices;
4. interpretation, comparison or sensitive experiences;
5. future suggestions and an invitation to add anything missed; and
6. the approved close, including any debrief or support information.

This is a sequence to test, not a universal formula. Some studies require a different order. Sensitive questions normally need proportionate preparation, appropriate transitions and a plan for distress or disclosure. Do not bury the response procedure in the interview guide and expect the interviewer to improvise it.

Avoid loading the opening with a long explanation of the study’s preferred concepts. That explanation can shape later answers. Participant information and consent must still be adequate, but the interview introduction should follow the approved materials and avoid teaching people what conclusions to provide.

Treat probes as a flexible bank, not a second questionnaire

A semi-structured guide needs consistency sufficient for the study aim and flexibility sufficient for participants’ accounts. The interviewer should cover the relevant domains, but the participant may introduce them in a different order. A later planned question may already have been answered.

Mark probes as optional and link them to their purpose. A detail probe asks for a concrete event. A meaning probe explores what the event signified to the participant. A contrast probe asks about difference across time or situations. A clarification probe checks an ambiguous term using the participant’s own language.

Avoid a probe that quietly restores an assumption removed from the main question. If a participant reports no change, “What made the improvement important?” is not responsive follow-up. A better probe might be “What led you to see it as unchanged?”

The open-access practical guide by DeJonckheere and Vaughn describes semi-structured interviewing as a flexible protocol with guiding questions and responsive follow-ups, while locating question design within wider decisions about purpose, participant fit, ethics, rapport, analysis and reporting. Their full article and tables can help situate the guide inside the complete method.

Pilot the guide to investigate how it works

A pilot is not a ceremonial rehearsal after the wording is fixed. Use it to test specific uncertainties:

• Do intended participants interpret the terms as expected?
• Does the order help them move from description to reflection?
• Which questions overlap, feel abrupt or produce only superficial answers?
• Do any probes assume an experience that a participant may not have?
• Is the planned duration realistic without rushing?
• Does the guide omit an important route through the experience?
• Can the interviewer use the guide while listening rather than reading continuously?

Where appropriate and permitted, pilot with people similar to the intended participants. Decide in advance how pilot material will be treated; do not silently move it into the main dataset. Check institutional and ethics requirements before involving people in pilot interviews.

Record evidence and decisions in a versioned log. “Piloted successfully” says little about what was learned.

On a narrow screen, scroll the table sideways to read every column.

Add the guide version, pilot date, evidence source and person responsible for each decision. Preserve earlier versions so the final method can distinguish a proposed edit from the guide actually used.

Check ethics, consent and safeguarding outside the question list

An interview guide is only one component of an ethical procedure. Follow the approval and local requirements that apply to the study. These may include:

• what participants have agreed to discuss and how consent is confirmed;
• whether audio or video recording is optional, required or separately consented;
• confidentiality limits and how identifiable details will be handled;
• how a participant can pause, decline a question or withdraw within the approved process;
• what the interviewer must do after distress, a disclosure or a safeguarding concern;
• where recordings, transcripts and contact details are stored and who can access them; and
• how debriefing, support or referral information is provided when relevant.

Collect only identifiable or sensitive information that the study genuinely needs. Do not ask an apparently useful background question merely because it might help later. Free conversation can also reveal third-party information; plan how this will be minimised and handled.

Do not copy a generic consent or safeguarding script from this resource. The wording and response pathway must match the study, setting, participant group, legal and institutional requirements, and the approved protocol.

Plan for language and access without changing the question silently

Check whether the guide’s vocabulary, format and delivery are accessible to the intended participants. Translation is more than replacing words, and an interpreter changes the interaction as well as the language. Plan who will translate or interpret, how meaning will be reviewed, what version the participant receives and how the involvement is reported.

Accessibility may affect pacing, modality, breaks, communication support and the way a question is presented. Pilot these arrangements with relevant expertise and intended users where appropriate. Preserve equivalent purposes across versions, but do not claim that literal sameness guarantees equivalent meaning.

Keep a record when interviewers rephrase a question. Some natural variation is expected in semi-structured work; repeated rephrasing that changes the construct or introduces a premise is a method issue worth addressing in training and reflection.

Preserve a reporting trace without treating a checklist as a design score

Before data collection, connect each guide domain to the study aim and keep the final version with the research record. During data collection, document material changes and why they occurred. When reporting, describe how the guide was developed, pilot-tested and used, including interviewer characteristics and procedural details relevant to interpretation.

The COREQ page maintained by the EQUATOR Network provides a reporting checklist for interview and focus-group studies. It can help identify information readers may need, but it is not a substitute for designing the study, and a completed checklist does not by itself demonstrate methodological quality.

Do not retrofit a neat development story after the interviews. If the guide evolved, report that transparently and consider what the change means for comparison across interviews and for the analysis.

A twelve-step drafting workflow

1. State the qualitative study aim in one sentence.
2. Confirm that the selected participants can speak to that aim.
3. Review relevant evidence and contextual knowledge without presuming the findings.
4. Group the information need into a small set of defensible domains.
5. Write one neutral, understandable main question for each domain.
6. Add only optional probes with a named purpose.
7. Audit assumptions, double questions, labels and requests for agreement.
8. Order the guide from accessible context toward more demanding material.
9. Align the opening, recording, consent, closing and response procedures with the approved protocol.
10. Pilot interpretation, sequence, burden, omissions and interviewer usability.
11. Record each finding, decision and unresolved issue in a versioned change log.
12. Freeze and identify the version used, while documenting any later change.

A good guide is structured enough to support the inquiry and flexible enough to let a participant complicate it. If you need help connecting questions to an approved qualitative design, our research support service can help you examine the alignment, pilot evidence and reporting boundaries. It does not supply invented interviews, participants, data or findings.