Interview Protocol

The protocol or minutes represents the result of interviewing. It is a document which contains the information obtained during an interview. The general information on the interviewer, interviewees, time and place of the interview are provided in the header of the protocol, whereas the title of the project within the framework of which interviewing has been performed is provided in the right-hand corner.

The content of an interview depends on the type of the interview. If the interview is structured, the interviewees answer the questions and the interviewer notes the answers, which means that the interviewer has the minutes in front of themselves, whereas in case of an unstructured interview, the interviewer usually does not have a protocol in front of themselves, and thus establishes a good rapport with the interviewees. The responses are recorded afterwards, preferably immediately after the interview in order to prevent forgetting. The interview can also be recorded, which is extremely useful because then the responses cannot be forgotten. Even though by doing audio recording some information such as non-verbal cues are inevitably lost, it is more often used than video recording because it is less obtrusive and much less difficult to perform, whereas there is no difference in the complexity of data amalyses (Dörnyei, 2007, p. 139).

The protocol contains the objectives of the interview, plan with the predefined duration of the interview, instructions about the interview tactics, etc. There should be some space for notes on the protocol itself, where the interviewer records their impressions about the interviewees, whether they showed signs of fatigue, had a repulsive attitude, etc. (Mužić, 1977, pp. 252–259).