Interview Assignment Reflection University of Calgary APSY 660 Shawna Sjoquist

The text offers that to be successful as an interviewer you must know yourself, trust your ideas, be willing to make mistakes and, above all, have a genuine desire to help the interviewee (Benjamin as cited in Sattler, 2006, p. 113). I decided on a semi-structured interview as having limited experience conducting these types of interviews I felt this would afford me the support I needed and flexibility I desired. Based on the referral question I had been provided, I chose areas ahead of time that I wanted to cover and used the semi-structured interview format to support me accordingly in gaining adequate information in the areas I needed. A weakness for me that I was aware of walking in is my tendency to get caught up in my own thought process regarding what to ask next and where to go from here. Knowing this about myself I found that taking the time to select questions ahead of time helped me to feel more confident in the questioning process and allowed me to allocate more of my cognitive resources to listening and attending to Mr. River. While I feel that preparing myself ahead of time and being self aware helped me to be successful, I still feel that I need to work more in this area. I still at times found myself thinking about the next question I should ask. This is an area that I will focus on in the future. Second to this, I have a tendency to speak too fast. This is another one of my weaknesses that I was conscious of when walking into and while completing the interview. Being self aware of my tendency to talk too fast enabled me to be conscious of taking care to slow my rate of speech down during the interview. Again, this is something I must work on as throughout the interview I felt myself using lots of ums which I think now, reflecting on things, was due in part to my conscious effort to slow myself down. Review of the consent process I think went over fairly well. I was trying to be cognizant of Mr. Rivers emotional state during this process as I know that review of this type of material, in addition to the initial few awkward moments that can occur at the beginning of an interview

when the interviewee doesnt quite know what to expect, can lead to some feelings of anxiousness. I was careful to watch Mr. River throughout the interview, for any signs that might indicate he was upset, resistant or unable to concentrate for any reason. I did not get the impression that Mr. River was overly anxious, resistant or experiencing difficulty concentrating and therefore did not feel as though I needed to change up my interviewing techniques to compensate. There were times where I did feel the need to expand on what I had said to ensure that Mr. River fully understood what I had intended for him to understand. I found that I was especially cognizant of this during the informed consent process. Working on my ability to fluently expand is another aspect of interviewing I would like to work on as I feel as though my inexperienced attempts to expand also brought on some of those ums I spoke of earlier. In addition to being a little preoccupied with the questions I wanted to ask, I also felt as though I was definitely distracted by the video and time line I needed to stick to for the assignment. At several points during the interview I found myself wondering if the video was recording and how I was doing for time. While I think I did put thought into setting up the interview environment wanting to ensure it was comfortable space to work in, I should have thought more about the clock placement. Using a watch or a phone on the table I feel would take away from the rapport I would hope to build with the interviewee but thinking about it now I think I would try to have a clock behind the interviewee that allowed me to quickly keep track of the time without being too distracting to the interviewee or making them feel as though I did not have the time to listen. In terms of showing Mr. River that I was listening, I feel like I did a pretty good job of using gestures and expressions to convey to Mr. River that I was listening. I tried to make sure that I was turned into Mr. River, maintained adequate eye contact, nodded my head, smiled etc. I do have a tendency to cross my arms and I did feel the need to stop myself

from doing this several times as doing so may have conveyed a negative message to Mr. River. Overall, I feel that I did put Mr. River at ease and was able to establish rapport with some small talk at the beginning of the interview. I tried to interject a bit of small talk into the interview here and there in an attempt to keep the rapport going. I think that I was able to convey a friendly and accessible demeanour to Mr. River. While I feel that I was able to establish a good working rapport, I neglected to periodically check in with Mr. River in terms of how he was doing, how he was feeling with the interview process and whether or not he had any questions. In the future, this is a strategic aspect of the interview that I will not miss. Checking in throughout the interview would have allowed me to stay attuned to Mr. Rivers needs and adjust my interviewing where necessary. I also found that I need to work on being less afraid of silences. There were several times where I needed to give Mr. River time to process both the questions and his answers. I feel like I had the tendency to jump in when he wasnt quite finished responding. This is a weakness that I will need to be aware of and work on in future interviews. While I did break questioning areas down into sections and transition between the sections relatively well I did not summarize the key information obtained in each areas all that well if at all. This again, is a weakness I will need to be aware of and work on in the future. Another aspect that I could have added in was making some form of comment that let Mr. River know, as the text suggests, that I did not have all the answers and that it may be difficult to find solutions (Sattler & Hoge, 2006). I think doing this would have demonstrated that I was willing to work with Mr. River to support him in the referral question while also keeping the process honest. I also think that I should have told Mr. River at the onset that it was okay to say if he didnt know the answer to some of the questions. I think

doing so would have served to put Mr. River that much more at ease and worked to ensure he was not answering just for answering sake. Throughout the interview I tried to be aware of any characteristics, language or nonverbal cues, physical, social and/or psychological cues that might influence the information obtained by the interview. In doing so, I noted what appeared to be good psychological health, good memory and expressive language; nothing that would influence the information obtained. I did note Mr. Rivers apparent preoccupation with his phone when it vibrated mid interview. I gave him the opportunity to attend to the phone as I did not want him to become preoccupied with the phone and offer up some distracted answers. I also tried to be aware of how Mr. River affected me in the interview. At one point I told him that he had given me a good answer which was the wrong thing to say. Mr. River had come to the interview without his wife and shared earlier that he was worried he may not know some of the answers. My compassion for his feelings at the time let the good answer slip. In reflection though I think it just goes to show how the interviewee has the potential to affect me and again this is an area that I will try to be more aware of in the future. I tried to paraphrase Mr. Rivers comments to show him that I was listening to what he was saying and help him to summarize the information he had offered me. I also noted that he had mentioned being concerned with his sons ability to make friends several times and added that this seemed to be something that was important to him. I think this was something that I did relatively well although all things can be improved. While I felt my ability to summarize the information was adequate I do feel like I need to work on my ability to probe for information more readily. There were several times where Mr. River gave me minimal or repeated information and I should have probed further. This is an area I will need to work on. I did use

elaboration when I said things like tell me more about that but in hindsight I could have used more variations like please go on or what happened next. I did at one point use repetition when Mr. River didnt quite get what I was asking. I repeated the question in a slightly modified manner and feel like I did this fairly well. Relating back to my comments regarding my weaknesses with silences, I plan to use those silences to my advantage in the future and use them to prompt a little more information. I feel that I did an adequate job of concluding the interview in the same friendly manner that we had begun the interview with. I summarized what had occurred, reviewed what would happen next and provided Mr. River an opportunity to ask any questions. I feel that I did a good job of letting Mr. River know of my intentions to contact his wife and potentially the classroom teacher for further information and also encouraging Mr. River to contact me should he have any questions that came up post interview. I feel as though, in situations such as these, people leave and often wish they would have said something different or asked something more. I think it is important to convey that after the interview is over that the door is still open should things like this come up. Overall, I feel like this interview assignment allowed me to test out the interview strategies offered by Sattler and gain a new awareness/appreciation for my strengths and weaknesses as an interviewer.

References Sattler, J.M. & Hoge, R.D. (2006). Assessment of children: Behavioural, social and clinical foundations (5th edition). La Mesa, CA: Jerome M. Sattler, Publisher.