Short Analysis Paper

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.