Expert Interview and Desk Interview in Research: Importance and Process

This article discusses the importance and process of expert and desk interviews in research. It explains how to conduct expert interviews and review previous interviews for data analysis. The article also highlights the ethical implications of conducting interviews in research.

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EXPERT INTERVIEW AND DESK INTERVIEW
by (Name)
The Name of the Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
The Name of the School (University)
The City and State where it is located
The Date

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Expert Interview and Desk Interview
Interviews are an important tool in research. An interview is a conversation between two
or more individuals where questions are asked by the interviewer with the aim of obtaining
information from the interview. An expert interview refers to an interview in which the
respondent is an expert in his or her field of study (Expert Interview, n.d.). This kind of interview
can be done either one-on-one or in a large group and can either be informal or formal held over
the phone, by email or face-to-face. On the other hand, a desk interview research refers to the
process of reviewing previous interviews in order to gain a broad understanding of information
within a given field of study. Noteworthy, both interview methods are useful in obtaining
information during the research process.
How interviews are conducted
It is noteworthy that expert comprises of a session between the researcher and the
interviewee. They are a form of explanatory research technique that is used to gather primary
data on a specific area of study. Various steps are followed when conducting an expert interview.
The first step involves the process of determining what kind of expert is needed for that
particular interview (Palm, 2015). After deciding on the experts to be interviewed, give them a
preview of the types of questions that the researcher will be asking and let them know how long
the interview will take. The third step involves choosing experts with different points of views in
order to get a diverse opinion on the subject matter (Marcello, 2014). On the day of the
interview, the researcher is expected to ask smart and researched questions during the
interaction. It is also important to record the interviewee’s responses either through writing or

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using a recorder. On the other hand, a desk interview is conducted not for purposes of collecting
data but to review previous interviews within the same field of study in order to gain a better
understanding of the subject matter (Desk Research, n.d.).
Importance of the interviews
By and large, both types of interviews are important sources of information in a research
study. As a whole, expert and desk interviews are important because they allow the interviewer
to collect useful information and data about a particular topic. In the case of expert interviews,
the researcher can obtain a greater insight about a specific area of study in which the expert has
specialized. In turn, this allows the researcher to gain vast knowledge on the subject matter to
help in making conclusions for the research. In addition, an expert interview allows the
researcher to ask more detailed questions to the respond and even seek clarification in areas that
are not clear (Hartman, 2017). Consequently, this ensures that the information gathered during
the study is well understood and can be applied to make informed decisions for the research.
Furthermore, both expert and desk interviews are important because the respondents of the study
cannot be influenced by external factors (DeFranzo, 2014). Therefore, the information gathered
in the study is largely accurate and concise, and can be used in analysis.
Despite the various advantages associated with desk and expert interviews, it is worth
pointing out that there have various disadvantages. Firstly, conducting these interviews can be
very time-consuming. Mainly, this is because the interview process requires setting up the
interview, conducting the actual interview, transcribing and analyzing the interview results
before reporting, providing feedback and interpreting the results of the interview. Besides, the

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interpretation of information from the interviews is subject to personal opinion as different
interviewers may understand and interpret the information from interviews differently.
Ethical Implications
The research process adopted for this study will take into consideration the ethical
implications of the study. Primarily, the ethical concerns and implications take into consideration
whether or not the research will bring harm to the participants of the study, whether an express
consent is obtained from the interviewee before we begin the interviewing process, if there are
any cases of deception is involved in the process of interviewing, and whether there is an
invasion of the privacy of the respond (Bryman and Bell, 2015, p.128). It is worth noting that the
study we conduct will not break any ethical or moral rules. Precisely, this implies that before
conducting the interviews, the researchers will obtain consent from the respondents and ensure
their willingness to take part in the process. Additionally, the interviewer will preserve the
privacy of its respondents by not revealing personal information during reporting and preserve
their anonymity. Furthermore, the study will not result in the harming of the interviewee in any
way.

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Reference List
Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2015). Business Research Methods. 4th ed. London: Oxford University
Press, p.128.
Defranzo, S. (2014). The Advantages and Disadvantages of Face-to-Face Data Collection.
[online] Snap Surveys. Available at: https://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/advantages-
disadvantages-facetoface-data-collection/ [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].
Desk research: the what, why and how. [online] User Focus. Available at:
https://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/desk-research-the-what-why-and-how.html [Accessed 11
Apr. 2018].
Expert Interview. [online] Knowledge Sharing Toolkit. Available at:
http://www.kstoolkit.org/Expert+Interview [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].
Expert-interview. [online] Design Kit. Available at: http://www.designkit.org/methods/43
[Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].
Hartman, D. (2017). What Are the Advantages & Disadvantages of Interviews?. [online]
Bizfluent. Available at: https://bizfluent.com/about-7536454-advantages-disadvantages-
interviews.html [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].
Marcello, P. (2014). How to Conduct & Create Content from Expert Interviews. [online]
SEMRush Blog. Available at: https://www.semrush.com/blog/conduct-create-content-expert-
interviews/ [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].

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Palm, T. (2015). Conducting Expert-interviews: some do’s and don’ts. [online] Socializing
Science. Available at: https://socializingsciencevu.com/2015/05/08/conducting-expert-
interviews-some-dos-and-donts/ [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018].