Qualitative Interviewing: A Practical Guide to Theory, Concepts, and Methods

Michelle O’Reilly (BSc [hons], MSc, MA, PhD, PGCAPHE) is an Associate Professor of Communication in Mental Health at the University of Leicester and a Research Consultant for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. Michelle is also a Chartered Psychologist in Health. Michelle has specific interest in child and adolescent mental health and has been investigating the relationship between mental health and social media as part of that work. Michelle has made several media contributions about the research with adolescents, educationalists, and parents, as funded by the Wellcome Trust. Additional to her research interests in mental health and social media, Michelle also undertakes research in self-harm and suicidal behaviour, neurodevelopmental conditions, and child mental health services, such as mental health assessments and family therapy. Michelle recently won the Anselm Strauss Award for Qualitative Family Research for her co-authored contribution on discursive psychology in this area. Michelle has expertise in qualitative methodologies and specialises in discursive psychology and conversation analysis.

Jessica Lester is a Professor of Inquiry Methodology in the School of Education at Indiana University, Bloomington. Having been trained in cultural studies and qualitative research methodology, she takes an interdisciplinary approach to her scholarship, including both the methodological and substantive foci of her research program. In her methodological work, Lester focuses on the study of language-based methods, digital tools in qualitative research, and disability in qualitative inquiry. Her substantive research has focused on examining interactional practices in clinical and educational contexts that involve children and youth. Lester has received numerous awards for her scholarship, among them the 2014 AERA Division D Early Career Award in Measurement and Research Methodology, the 2018 APA Distinguished Early Career Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award, and the 2022 American Educational Studies Association Critics’ Choice Book Award. At Indiana University, Lester teaches qualitative methods courses and was recently recognized by the 2022 Gorman Distinguished Teaching Award.

Kathryn Roulston is a Professor in the Qualitative Research Program in the Mary Frances Early College of Education at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, where she teaches qualitative research methods. Her research interests include qualitative research methods, qualitative interviewing, and analyses of talk-in-interaction. She is editor of Interactional Studies of Qualitative Interviews (2019), and with Kathleen deMarrais, has co-authored Exploring the Archives: A Beginner’s Guide for Qualitative Researchers (forthcoming). She has contributed chapters to The SAGE Handbook of Interview Research (2012, 2nd edition), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis (2014), The SAGE Handbook of Data Collection (2018), and the forthcoming volume, The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Design. Her articles have been published in Qualitative Research, Qualitative Inquiry, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, and International Review of Qualitative Research among other journals.