What's in an Interview?

Ryan is a mechanical engineer passionate about simple machines and getting people on bicycles. He is an engaged father and husband. As a young boy, Ryan’s life lacked formative spiritual influences, which he later found at age 24. In 2014, Ryan began to see men that lived a life he thought he should be living too, one where being the man of the house meant studying scripture, playing with kids, cleaning up dinner, and not being burnt out every day from work. Ryan is a dad and a husband who loves his role in his family.

Ryan is unique in that he believes a father can work to provide for his family and spend quality time with his wife and children daily.

It is wonderfully ordinary to learn about Ryan’s dreams of building bicycles and using his engineering skills as a social activist for better bicycle accessibility to help families.

Ryan is an involved father, and surprisingly the COVID-19 pandemic positively influenced Ryan’s proactive involvement in his home and family life. Dr. David Popenoe, Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, says,“Fathers are far more than just ‘second adults in the home. Involved fathers… provide protection and economic support and male role models. They have a parenting style that is significantly different from that of a mother, and that difference is important in healthy child development”. Ryan realizes his father was a good teacher and provider but that he was not regularly involved in his daily life. Ryan’s father did not engage in play or adventure with his family every week. Ryan is authentic and intentional in living out his dreams to be a proactive and involved professional dad. Ryan realizes when he misses moments with his daughter and how that affects them emotionally. I was inspired and taken aback by Ryan’s candid conversations about the lack of emotional investment by male family in his life and his plan to be different.

“Fathers are far more than just ‘second adults in the home. Involved fathers… provide protection and economic support and male role models. They have a parenting style that is significantly different from that of a mother, and that difference is important in healthy child development”.

I love interviewing people. The outcome of this research project surprised me because I rarely engage in semi-structured interviews. By conducting a semi-structured interview, I could follow the direction of my interview subject rather than dictating the direction. Some of my questions were leading, and I think that happened because my subject is my spouse. I wanted him to talk about things I know about him as a father and husband that maybe he was not considering. I was surprised at how my interview subject remained casual while keeping his answers formal and work-focused for the first half of the subject. Before embarking on this project, I made historical assumptions about the relationship between the interviewer and interviewee. As the interviewer, I assumed the subject would engage in more natural friendly conversation, potentially interrupting my questions and making side comments. Some of my assumptions proved correct; the subject enjoyed moments of humorous side comments and shared details about his spiritual life that may have been excluded in an interview with a stranger.

When I selected my interview subject, I assumed he would be more comfortable answering interview questions in a natural and conversational style since we have known one another for over a decade. My interview subject eventually loosened up and talked about his feelings, dreams, and family, which rounded out the research.

The best part of practicing interviewing as a research method is also the most challenging for me. Public speaking and storytelling were one of my strongest skills until my accident. I was surprised at my articulation and overall speaking skills. Due to the nature of my disability, I cannot guarantee cohesive speech from one conversation to the next. If I had completed this interview months ago, my ability to ask questions would be akin to an early Barbara Walters if she also slurred her words and said the wrong word without realizing it or being unable to correct it. Thanks to my neuro-rehab therapy, My interview with Ryan was done in one take, with pauses for interruptions from our three-year-old. This research method is my favorite, along with SWOT surveys, and I look forward to sharpening my skills and tongue.

Fellow researchers should consider the personality of the person they are interviewing. Leave room in the interview for random questions that still fit the research theme.

As a full-time researcher, I want to research many topics, some of which may still need to be created. I look forward to spending my next 30 years as a student of past, present, and future human interactions. Communication is my bread and butter, and social justice issues of all kinds need essential and crucial relevant information exchanged. I plan to continue to study the current literature and contribute to the collective knowledge of our future. This research project reminded me why I want to learn interpersonal relationships from a humanities perspective and research parenting from a social justice perspective.

Listening to my husband discuss his dreams for fathers and families to have more time with their children hit me with the reality of how fragile parenting in America is. I was reminded of how far we have come in only 4 years as young parents. My husband originally had 4 days off when our first child was born, and he was gone during the work day for 12 hours 4-6 days a week. Ryan had two weeks of vacation and two weeks of paternity leave at his last job. There needs to be more to be a fully family-supportive work policy, but it is a massive leap toward pro-parenting policies for a small American company.

Fellow researchers should consider the personality of the person they are interviewing. Leave room in the interview for random questions that still fit the research theme. Well-structured interviews allow researchers to connect their subjects’ personal experiences and insights to accurate data.

Sometimes I apply my interviewing skills to my daily life to acquaint myself with people in my family better.

Interviewing my husband was great practice refining my skills as a Humanities and Social Science researcher and lecturer. Communication education is my passion. Learning and curiosity drive me as a researcher and are my stepping stones to affecting social change. Each choice I make during my regular life is carefully curated to heal humanity and aides the greater good.

Regarding the interview research method, I am still curious about what three personal characteristics and skills I need to discuss and improve.

Listening is a skill I can always work to improve. Hearing someone and listening with empathy, care, and consideration for another’s perspective is an essential skillset as a researcher. Listening without constructing my views on the subject. I want to know about humanity. I am hungry for information, stories, and creativity.

I believe people and their stories must be documented, shared, and even analyzed to find the truth behind being human.

My skills are strongest in writing when I am given a topic and asked to write about it. It was challenging to comb through many multifaceted questions and answer them in written form. Each time I came across a question for this project and the previous three, I thought how nice it would be to simply turn on a microphone and record my answers orally in the style of a semi-conversational semi-professional interview.

If you would like to be interviewed for one of my research projects, please fill out the contact sheet on this page, or send me a message in the chat!