CHE Principles: facilitating authentic and dialogical semi-structured interviews in educational research

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the values of the CHE principles of Connectivity, Humanness and Empathy as a guiding framework for maximizing the ethical and methodological advantages of semi-structured interview research practices. The authors draw from two separate educational studies and apply the CHE principles to analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of decision-making in facilitating sustainable relationships with the participants in each study. Findings highlight that dialogical relations with participants were evident in both studies, and identify significant junctures where decision-making and actions influenced effective rapport-building and respectful and reciprocal relationships with participants in the research. The CHE principles emerge as providing a robust framework for educational researchers to employ when auditing their decision-making prior to and during their engagement in qualitative interviews.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational research
• qualitative methods
• rapport-building
• semi-structured interviews
• relationships

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the participants in their respective research studies. The paper has been enhanced and enriched by the invaluable feedback of two anonymous peer reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Alice Brown http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0306-729X