| Expert Interviews (Local Consultations, Exploratory in-depth Interviews)
Sometimes before a formal questionnaire-design process begins, a researcher determines that he/she needs a great deal more information on the topic of research. For example, the Metagora pilot study undertaken by FUNDAR was a survey of household-based residents of the Distrito Federal on their experiences of ill-treatment by the police. The researchers for the study realised they needed a better understanding of experiences of both police officers engaging in ill-treatment and citizens that had experienced ill-treatment. Therefore, prior to beginning questionnaire design, they engaged in a series of expert interviews about the issue with both subject experts, such as penal lawyers and human rights experts, and lay experts, including citizens and police officers.
Expert interviews, or local consultations, may take place before a questionnaire is designed so that:
- appropriate vocabulary is used to describe the experiences and concepts about which the respondents will be queried;
- sensitivities towards the topics covered by the questionnaire can be gauged;
- the universe of experiences related to the topic of interest can be better defined; and
- ethical issues that may arise during the data-collection process can be explored.
"Experts" need not be academic experts; they might be cultural experts who are familiar with the concepts to be studied but might have very little formal education on those concepts.
Expert interviews are not designed to gather quantitative information, and are not usually limited by a particular set of questions. Rather, they are considered qualitative fact-finding missions, during which new questions may arise. Such interviews take at least a few hours, and usually a limited number of expert interviews are planned. When the expert interviews are completed, the qualitative data are summarised and studied, and the design of the questionnaire can begin.
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