To write an interview guide, connect each research objective to something a participant can describe, draft a clear opening question, and add neutral prompts for detail. Then check the sequence and test it through the review process your institution requires. A collection of interesting questions is not enough if their answers cannot address your study.
This guide concerns semi-structured research interviews: a planned conversation with room for relevant follow-up. If your study requires a fixed, structured interview schedule, follow that design instead. Start with the research-design guide and data-collection comparison if the method is still undecided.
Your interview guide should connect to a methodology you can explain. UniDraft helps organise your confirmed approach, permitted source notes and actual findings into an editable project document. Start your project documentation, then check the draft against your guide, evidence and supervisor instructions. The project workflow supports the written report; it does not recruit participants, conduct interviews or replace your analysis.
First decide what an interview can answer
Interviews can help you explore how people describe experiences and make sense of events. An account of using a system is different from a measured test of its performance. If your objective concerns response time, a person's estimate alone does not establish a timed result.
Write a short justification before drafting questions:
| Planning question | What to write |
|---|---|
| What do I need to understand? | The particular experience, decision or process relevant to the study |
| Who could speak about it? | Eligibility based on relevant experience, not simply availability |
| What can their account establish? | The boundaries of what you will claim from the interview |
| How will I analyse the material? | A named approach that fits the question and evidence |
| What review is required? | Supervisor, institutional and ethics requirements before collection |
Use the sampling guide to justify participant selection. This article does not prescribe an interview count or make a small group representative of all students.
Kallio and colleagues' methodological review treats guide development as a justified process: establish whether the method fits, examine relevant knowledge, draft, pilot and document the final guide. That is a development framework, not evidence that a particular student instrument has been validated.
Turn an objective into a question and a probe
Fictional teaching example: imagine a proposed study about students' experiences of revising a report after supervisor feedback. No interviews, responses or findings are being asserted here. These original questions are not a validated instrument.
| Illustrative objective | Opening question | Possible neutral follow-up | What the answer could contribute |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explore how students interpret written comments | Think about a recent comment on your report. How did you decide what it was asking you to change? | What helped you decide? Was anything unclear? | An account of interpretation, including uncertainty |
| Understand the revision process | Can you talk me through what you did after receiving that comment? | What happened next? Can you describe a particular step? | A sequence of reported actions |
| Explore access to clarification | If you needed clarification, how did you try to get it? | What happened when you tried? If you did not seek it, what influenced that decision? | Different routes, including not seeking clarification |
| Understand how students judge a revision | How did you decide whether your revision addressed the comment? | What did you check? Was there anything you were still unsure about? | The participant's judgement and its limits |
A research objective belongs in your planning record. The interview question should use words the participant can understand. Asking someone to discuss a theoretical construct without explanation may produce confusion rather than useful evidence.
A probe invites more detail about the participant's account. It should not supply the answer you hope to hear. You do not have to ask every possible probe when the point has already been explained.
Remove assumptions before the interview
Read each question and underline any answer it already assumes. Try these original rewrites:
| Question to reconsider | Problem | More open alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Why was your supervisor's feedback confusing? | Assumes confusion | How did you understand the feedback? |
| How did the poor internet stop you revising? | Assumes both a connection problem and its effect | What affected your ability to complete the revision? |
| Was the feedback clear and useful? | Combines two judgements and invites a short response | How did you understand the comment? Then ask separately what you did with it. |
| You used AI to fix it, right? | Suggests an expected answer | What resources, if any, did you use while revising? |
| How do all students in your department feel? | Asks one person to speak for everyone | What was your own experience? |
These are drafting checks, not a promise that replacing a sentence removes every source of bias. Your role, relationship with participants and follow-up choices also matter. Keep a note of assumptions you bring to the study.
Put the guide in a usable order
An interview guide needs enough structure for you to use it while listening. An original working layout is:
- Administrative header: study code, guide version and date. Keep identities out of working copies where your approved procedure requires participant codes.
- Opening reminders: the agreed explanation of the study, consent process, recording arrangements and participant choices. Use approved wording; this article is not a substitute consent form.
- An accessible opening: invite a relevant experience the participant can describe without guessing your theory.
- Core topics: group your main questions and optional prompts. Leave room for a relevant unexpected account.
- Closing opportunity: ask whether there is something relevant you missed, then explain the approved next steps.
- Researcher notes: record context, interruptions and decisions separately from participant speech.
Do not promise anonymity, a right to withdraw at any time, or a deletion deadline that your actual approved process cannot honour. Check those commitments with the relevant institutional guidance before using them.
Pilot the guide and keep a change record
The pilot-study planning guide provides a broader feasibility worksheet covering access, instructions and recording as well as question wording. It keeps the trial's practical decisions separate from the main study's findings.
Arrange review and piloting as permitted by your institution, including any permissions needed for the pilot itself. Do not recruit first and seek approval afterwards. A pilot should tell you what to improve, not merely provide a sentence saying the instrument was tested.
During the permitted trial, check whether questions are understood, whether the order works, whether prompts encourage relevant detail and whether recording and timing arrangements are practical. Your supervisor should determine the appropriate pilot design and participants. A universal pilot sample size would not fit every study.
Keep this blank worksheet:
| Guide version / item | What happened in review or pilot? | Proposed change | Reason | Required review before use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fill with your actual record | Record the observed problem without identifying the participant | Revised wording or procedure | How it improves the evidence you need | Record the applicable decision |
Keep pilot material distinguishable from the main dataset. Do not silently combine it with study findings. Whether any pilot material can be included needs an explicit, justified decision consistent with your design and approval.
Plan the recording-to-analysis handover
Before the interview, agree how you will create and check the record. If recording is not permitted, use the approved alternative and report its limitations. Do not reconstruct missing quotations from memory and present them as verbatim speech.
For recorded interviews, decide speaker labels, transcription conventions, access permissions and how uncertain passages will be marked. The transcript-checking section explains the handover to analysis. Confidential recordings should not go into an online transcription service merely because it is convenient; verify that the intended processing is allowed.
If reflexive thematic analysis is your chosen method, do not turn the guide's topic headings automatically into final themes. Questions organise the conversation; themes are developed through analysis of the actual material.
Explain the guide in Chapter Three and at defence
Your methodology chapter should explain why interviews fit, how you developed the guide, what review or pilot you actually completed, how you selected participants and how you handled the records. If you adapted published questions, identify the real source and changes. Do not claim permission or validation you have not obtained.
Include the appropriate blank guide in the appendices when your departmental requirements call for it. An instrument appendix is different from publishing identifiable raw transcripts.
For a defence, practise answering: Which question addressed each objective, and what could its answers not establish? Use your actual guide and evidence. If an objective has no relevant question, fix that alignment before collection rather than inventing a finding later.
Ready-to-review checklist
- Each core question has a reason connected to the study.
- Participants can answer from relevant experience.
- Wording does not assume the desired finding.
- Follow-ups invite detail without feeding an answer.
- Recording, consent and access arrangements match the required approvals.
- Review and pilot changes have a dated record.
- You can explain the planned analysis without pretending it has already happened.
UniDraft can help organise your project documentation around the method and facts you confirm. You remain responsible for obtaining permission, conducting the interviews and interpreting the evidence. Explore the project workflow.
