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The Long Interview
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The Long Interview



November 1988 | 88 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
The Long Interview provides a systematic guide to the theory and methods of the long qualitative interview or intensive interviewing. It gives a clear explanation of one of the most powerful tools of the qualitative researcher. The volume begins with a general overview of the character and purpose of qualitative inquiry and a review of key issues. The author outlines the four steps of the long qualitative interview and how to judge quality. He then offers practical advice for those who commission and administer this research, including sample questionnaires and budgets to help readers design their own. The author introduces key theoretical and methodological issues, various research strategies, and a simple four stage model of inquiry, from the design of an open-ended questionnaire to the write up of results.
 
Introduction
 
Nine Key Issues
 
The Four-Step Method of Inquiry
 
Quality Control
 
The Writing-Up Process
 
Managing Qualitative Research
 
Conclusion

"Continue[s] the high quality of previously published volumes in the SAGE series on qualitative research methods. Grant McCracken shows how the long interview can be devised in order to understand respondents in their own terms, the use of prompts to follow-up questions being a particularly important feature. The analysis and writing up of such information is examined in considerable detail and will be of interest to students who are often baffled by qualitative data."

Contemporary Sociology

"Grant McCracken provides one of the finest bibliographies on the qualitative-quantitative debate that I have ever seen...This selective bibliography alone would be worth the price of the book...McCracken [has a] pleasant writing style, which is balanced, graceful, and witty."

Journal of Marketing Research

An excellent book, although more suited to doctoral students rather than the undergraduate cohort.

Jane Brown
Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University
October 3, 2016

This book describes the process for long interviews which is an important method for qualitative research in the appropriate scenario. The book is clearly written and set out well. It comprises No 13 of a series of 45 publications on qualitative research methods.

Mr David Biggins
The Business School, Bournemouth Univ.
May 16, 2014

I used this book as an ancillary textbook the previous time I taught my master's level course in qualitative research methods (Spring 2011). One student then summed up the reason why I did not adopt this book again this time (Spring 2012): "While I was reading this book, all I could think of was how old it is." The book lacked credibility to students because it's so old.

Professor Gail Grainne Whitchurch
Communications Dept, Indiana University / Purdue University at Indiana
September 19, 2012

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