View/Open - CORA - University College Cork

One of the constant criticisms of the semi-structured interview is that respondents may
feel obliged to answer questions in a way that will please the interviewer thereby hiding
from view answers which approximate more closely to the actual views held by the
speaker. Indeed this criticism may also be levelled, but with less force, against the focus
group technique. How is the researcher to know if the views expressed in the semi-
structured interviews approximate to the cognitions of the judge who is presented with a
“live” case for sentencing? This highlights one of the central problems of qualitative
analysis but the exclusion of such data on the grounds of such objections would be
counterproductive the writer contends. The writer is in a position to observe his
colleagues’ sentencing practices for a number of years from conversations with them, and
from accounts of trials through cases and newspaper reports. As an exercise, the writer
anticipated the responses from certain of the judges and when the interviews were typed
up, these were examined for consistency. Invariably, the responses conformed to the views
previously predicted in relation to the questions. This exercise gives reassurances that the
responses were genuinely held by the speakers and conform with the cognitions which
underpin their practices.
But the problems of qualitative methodology do not end when the speakers’ words are
captured on audio tape. The task of accuratelyrecording the speakers’ words must next be
reduced into typed up scripts which were then compared to the spoken words used on the
tapes. Then and only then can the task of analysis begin. The natural event of sentencing
must be seen to be at a remove from the script now to be analysed. The script represents
an accurate transcription of the sentencers’ spoken words or his/her cognitions and
expectations. This is mediated through language and is in turn subject to interpretation by
the researcher. Multiple copies of the scripts were made and the topics and questions were
placed into certain categories for comparison and analysis by the use of different colour
markings. The writer was also alert to the possibilityof issues emerging in the scripts which
were not anticipated by him in the questions presented. When this occurs in qualitative
analysis the research is given a bonus, provided the topic is relevant. Usually such issues
emerge as a crosscutting topic which may touch upon a number of connected issues for
discussion (Kreuger 1998). As expected some of these issues did emerge which allowed the
application of an inductive approach to the data collected. When combined with the
deductive approach to the hypotheses this gave fuller meaning to the issues under
discussion
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