Rikki
Frischman
Dr.
Chandler
English
3029 Section 01
3/28/13
Interviews are a helpful way to
gather information on how a specific person thinks/feels about a certain
subject. In this particular interview I will be analyzing the interviewer and
the participant’s discussion of gaming literacies and how the interviewer and
the participant interact with each other. This interview talks about how games
can be considered software. While analyzing this interview I noticed that there
were aspects of how the interviewer was stating questions that made the
participant uncomfortable. However, throughout reading the interview I noticed
a change. It is important to know what aspects of the interview questions can
make a participant feel uncomfortable because when they feel uncomfortable they
may not be as honest or confident as they could be. By making the participant
comfortable, the interviewer will have a better opportunity to receive truthful
input from the participant throughout the interview.
Some of the language presented
throughout the interview let you know that the participant felt either comfortable
or uncomfortable. During the first half of the interview the participant uses
stalling words when the interviewer is asking him questions. For example; “ah”
and “I guess”. Another aspect that I also noticed was at the beginning of the
interview the participant was laughter, coming up with excuses, and rambling.
These features indicated to me that the participant felt uncomfortable. But as
I continued to read the rest of the interview I noticed that the participant
became more comfortable. He was using phrases such as; “oh yeah and you’re
right” which showed me that he began to get comfortable and gain more
confidence in himself and his answers. He was also agreeing with the interviewer,
which showed me that their conversation was going smoothly. Finally, at the end
of the interview he brought up a completely new topic, which showed that he was
comfortable enough to share more of his knowledge with the interviewer.
At the beginning of the interview
the interviewer would ask him questions, he would answer and then the interviewer
would not accept his answer, she would challenge it. For example; the
participant states that he considers software to be frontpage, powerpoint,
excell, ect and the interviewer argued with him by asking if games were a
software.
Ch “so it's interesting, games aren't really
considered software are they?
B they
are -
Ch so you know lots of software
B yeah, but it's just games (laughing)”
This point in the interview is when the
participant starts stalling and laughing which showed his nervousness and
uncertainty to answer based on how the interviewer approached the questions
asked. As I continued reading the
interview I kept noticing these characteristics. The participant would say
something and the interviewer would condescendingly ask him something else as
if she was only looking for one, specific answer.
Something else I noticed towards the
middle of this interview was that he was making excuses for his knowledge of
software. It seemed that because the interviewer was so assertive in the
beginning of this interview in getting only the answers she was looking for; he
was not sure when she was giving him a complement or agreeing with him. For
example; the interviewer stated that he had knowledge and an understanding of
how to interpret programs and he blamed his knowledge of the software on the
use of menus. He stated “in the beginning, there’s menus” and he rambled about
the menus for a few lines trying to prove his point.
Ch “that's literacy - you have the basic
tools, the right basic set of assumptions for how to read, understand,
interpret a program. And so what I'm
looking for is the connection between all the gaming experience you have and your
ability to do that with the applications - the academic applications
B well like a lot of games, in the
beginning, there's menus. You don't just
start playing. There's menus, you get to
customize your decal your spray, clothes,
Laughing
It's not
all playing the game it's a lot of process to prepare for it, there's like box,
scripts, you practice it, and you're not playing with other people, you're just
like fooling around.”
This
tells me that he did not feel confident enough yet with the interviewer to
accept her compliment and needed a way to make himself not sound as smart as he
was.
However, this was the point in the
interview that I noticed a change. It seemed that the interviewer was starting
to become less demanding with question and more interested to see what the
initial thought of the participant was. For example; after the participant
mentioned the menus the interviewer reiterated what the participant said and
simply asked “anything else”.
Ch “OK so all those things - same kinds of
processes, same kinds of moves - so navigating menus is something you learned
from games that can carry over - anything else?
B I think that is the main thing, I can't
connect a First person shooter with Microsoft word, that would be a real
stretch”
This
was he point when the participants answers seemed to be getting more relaxed
and they were shorter and to the point. He is not stalling, laughing, coming up
with excuses, or rambling. And for the first time in the entire interview the
interviewer asked him a question and he replied with an “oh yeah, you’re right”.
The rest of this interview seemed to
run very smoothly. Each question and answer was a few words long and the
conversation seemed to flow nicely.
B “like I was navigating through menus
Ch you got used to trial and error
B I
wasn't being graded - there's no - all right man, let's pass this class you've
got to
Ch so you're completely comfortable with
messing it up and starting over.
B Oh yeah”
Towards the very end of the interview the
interviewer asked if he was comfortable messing around with software and
starting over and he replied “oh yeah”. The statement “oh yeah” to the question
asked prior shows that his confidence really exceled from the beginning of the
interview until then. His confidence really showed at that point in the
interview because he did not explain himself he just gave the interviewer the
simplest answer to answer her question. The very last line of the interview
however, was when I noticed the biggest change in confidence. The interviewer
ask him if there was anything that he would like to add in the interview and he
brought a song he heard on the radio about laughing at your mistake.
B “there's a song by Natasha Ben ? I hear
it on the radio - it goes like, she says in her song, that we're taught not to
make mistakes, we really can't live that way”
The
fact that he was able to continue the conversation even after the main points
were made showed that he felt comfortable and was confident in continuing to
talk to the interviewer.
The interview seemed to completely change when
the interviewer stopped trying to get information she wanted out of the
participant. When she did this it made the participant uncomfortable and not as
confident when answering the questions she asked. But as soon as she started
asking questions the would further the current conversation the participant
gained confidence and became comfortable answering questions that way he wanted
to the whole time. When an interviewer comes off as condescending and assertive
the participant is going to have a more difficult time answering the questions
truthful but as soon as the interviewer begins to accept the conversation and
just simply continue it the participant will be a lot more willing to answer
the questions asked truthfully.
