Fundamental Pedagogy Jana Doležalová

Interview 
The 
interview is sometimes included among explorative methods. Oral 
statements enable contact between the researcher and the respondent, which 
provides certain benefits. A record is made from the interview. It involves either 
answers to pre-specified questions (which may remind of the completion of a 
questionnaire on the basis of the respondent’s answers and which is why 
interview is sometimes included among quantitative methods) or it may be non-
structured, which is why it is by some experts included among qualitative 
methods. 
14.5 Qualitative Research Methods 
Ethnographic
This method is one of the newer streams which seek different approaches to 
study educational phenomena. It is based on efforts to penetrate into the 
environment under study as deep as possible and not to interfere with it with 
this intervention. The researcher does not have clearly pre-specified and 
articulated goals and does not actually know what to study (what will attract 
his/her, what will seem to be remarkable, important). The use of the above-
mentioned participant observation may be one of the options of the 
ethnographic approach, i.e. the observer acts as an observing or full participant 
in all happenings.
Interview 
In addition to observation, the use of the interview is also an option of how to 
become familiarised with the given school (institution) as objectively as possible 
(compared with the interview as a quantitative method). It is an uncontrolled 
interview; it is not structured and is primarily based on non-directive questions 

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aimed at learning as much as possible from free statements. The researcher 
must endeavour that the interview be absolutely informal and in the ‘home’ 
environment. 
The reading of documents may also serve to supplement additional information. 
In addition to the documents specified above, they may also include school 
magazines, works of students (works of art, literary work), chronicles, etc. The 
researcher puts the information down during the entire research and analyses 
and summarises it. It is evident that certain subjective views (impressions) of 
the researcher cannot be avoided in this case, and then it is much more difficult 
to draw general conclusions. The starting point of such research is to establish 
to what extent all actors agree with this research and a kind of communion of 
the researcher and the given environment.