Now in its fourth edition, this popular book provides clear, step-by-step guidance for new and experienced interviewers to develop, shape, and reflect on interviewing as a qualitative research process. Using concrete examples of interviewing techniques to illustrate the issues under discussion, this classic text helps readers to understand the complexities of interviewing and its connections to broader issues of qualitative research. The text includes principles and methods that can be adapted to a range of interviewing approaches.

Appropriate for individual and classroom use, the new edition has been expanded to include:

• In Chapter 2, clarification of important phenomenological assumptions that underlie the interviewing approach presented in the book.
• In Chapter 7, new sections on Long-Distance Interviewing and its implications for the relationship between interviewers and their participants.
• In Chapter 8, a new section on the pros and cons of Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software.
• Chapter 9, "The Ethics of Doing Good Work," is a new chapter which discusses the interplay between ethical issues in interviewing and how interviewers carry out their work as researchers.

“I have used Seidman's text with great success with graduate students new to qualitative research. Its complex yet readable treatment is an essential part of the toolbox for both novice and experienced qualitative interviewers.”

—Mark R. Warren, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Affairs, University of Massachusetts Boston

“This is a thoughtful and well-written introduction to the topic. I assign it in multiple undergraduate and graduate classes I teach. The chapter on interview technique is particularly helpful, giving students useful advice on topics like how to avoid asking leading questions. Highly recommended.”

—Amy Bruckman, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology (on the third edition)

Praise for Previous Editions:

“A comprehensive perspective of the nature of qualitative inquiry and the art of interviewing.” 
—Theory and Research in Social Education

“A good starting point for training new researchers.”
—The Journal of Higher Education