Stimulated Recall Interviews in Ethnography

Abstract

This article describes the use of stimulated recall interviews as a technique for investigating how people approach interactions in a number of different situations. In general, the technique I describe involves interviewing individuals by playing them audio or audiovisual recordings of their own behavior in social situations and discussing different aspects of those recorded interactions. Doing so can help us to understand what signals interactants understand as important, what signals they try to convey to others, and how they choose from various options to act upon the information they receive in interactions. Using the example of jazz jam sessions, I ask why it is that interactions can sometimes go smoothly and uneventfully, or sometimes break down completely. The stimulated recall interviews provide a valuable tool in helping the ethnographer to answer these kinds of questions.Keywords Ethnographic methods . Interviewing . Interaction . Jazz This article describes the use of stimulated recall interviews (SRI) as a technique for investigating how people coordinate their interactions in a number of different situations. In general, the technique I describe involves interviewing individuals while playing them audio or audiovisual recordings of their own behavior in social situations. Through participant-observation, ethnographers are able to gain unique insights into why people choose to act in certain ways in various situations. Traditional interviews and even autoethnographic techniques can help us to gain further understanding of the motivations and strategies underlying interactions and practices. But the ethnographer may be somewhat frustrated by the problems of memory and perspective inherent in these techniques. Motivations and rationales that informants describe retrospectively may not conform to those that they actually held in the moment of the experience. The technique of SRI brings informants a step closer to the moments in which they actually produce action. It gives

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“…In order to elicit supervisors' reflections on supervising student research projects and to promote their reflective thoughts, we used a method similar to the stimulated recall method. In stimulated recall interviews participants select and discuss parts of student-supervisor interactions (Dempsey 2010). In this way we were able to elicit supervisors' cognitions underlying supervision of their students (e.g.…”

Matematikte Akran Öğretimi Sırasında Öğretici Görevi Üstlenen Öğrencilerde Üstbiliş

“…Besides, some particular questions relating to the aim of the study and content of the work in the peer tutoring sessions were addressed while watching the videos. Stimulated recall interview was chosen as the data collection technique since it helps researchers delve into the thinking underlying participants' actions, strategies particularly in situations involving interactions (Dempsey, 2010). So, the combined use of observations while working on the task and interviewing the tutors after the task enabled a thorough investigation of metacognition.…”