Source
doi:10.1080/13645579.2020.1766777 — original publication (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Summary
Döringer’s 2021 paper “‘The problem-centred expert interview’. Combining qualitative interviewing approaches for investigating implicit expert knowledge” (International Journal of Social Research Methodology 24(3):265-278) proposes and derives a named qualitative interview method: the problem-centred expert interview. It merges the theory-generating expert interview (Bogner & Menz) with Witzel’s problem-centred interview (PCI) so that expert interviewing can move beyond explicit technical facts to reach the implicit, interpretative dimension of expert knowledge — the subjective relevancies, action orientations and decision-making practices that shape a field of action. The method is demonstrated through the author’s PhD study of “key agents” in human geography, and is offered as a transferable approach for policy analysis, organisational studies and applied social research.
For the Neobiome project its role is methodological: it is the cited method behind its expert/key-agent interviews, justifying a dialogic, reflexive interview stance aimed at surfacing tacit expert reasoning rather than only documented fact. It contributes no quantitative or domain data to the Neobiome Intelligence model.
Key thesis insights
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What the method is: a deliberate combination of two established expert-interviewing approaches. Döringer derives the problem-centred expert interview by merging Bogner and Menz’s theory-generating expert interview — which defines the ‘expert’, distinguishes types of expert knowledge (technical, process, interpretative) and aims at inductive theory development — with Witzel’s problem-centred interview, which supplies a concrete interview design and question set (Table 1, p. 268). The two are combinable because they share methodological premises: both foreground the interviewee’s perspective and both can be tied to Grounded Theory’s aim of building middle-range theory from qualitative interview data. LIT_111
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Accessing implicit rather than explicit expert knowledge is the whole point. The paper’s stated aim is to “move beyond the focus on explicit expert knowledge” and investigate “implicit, interpretative expert knowledge” (abstract, p. 265) — knowledge that “does not exist a priori, but is developed through the ‘act of abstraction and systematization’” during analysis (Bogner & Menz, 2009, p. 53, cited p. 267). This interpretative knowledge comprises subjective relevancies, viewpoints, decision-making practices and action orientations, and it is precisely what standard expert interviewing (focused on collecting technical/process facts) tends to overshadow. LIT_111
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A dialogic-discursive, egalitarian interview stance is what makes the implicit accessible. PCI is framed as “an egalitarian dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee in which the research question or the ‘problem’ is refined jointly” (p. 268), giving equal weight to the researcher’s prior theoretical/empirical knowledge and the respondent’s personal experience. In practice the interviewer opens with a narrative-eliciting question, then shifts “from listening to intervening” using general and specific explorations (mirroring, comprehensive questions, confrontations) and ad hoc questions — combining an open narrative beginning with a topical guide. The “dialogic-discursive structure” is what surfaces individual perspectives and lets respondents clarify, revise and unfold their own relevancies. LIT_111
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A reflexive, inductive-deductive posture toward the expert and toward the researcher’s own assumptions. The method interweaves deductive elements (an interview guide built on theoretical concepts and heuristics) with inductive openness, casting the interviewer as a “well-informed traveller” who “stays open-minded to the interviewees’ perspectives and willing to reformulate his or her previous assumptions” (Murray, 2016, cited p. 268). It attends reflexively to the interviewer’s role (co-expert, layperson, or potential critic) because the interviewee’s perception of that role shapes what is disclosed. The stance is constructivist: expert knowledge is treated “not only as exclusive knowledge limited to the insights of science… but also as practical, local knowledge emerging from professional as well as private experiences” (p. 275). LIT_111
Notes
- Provenance (Open Access, version of record). The retrieved PDF is the published version of record from Taylor & Francis, distributed Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 licence (© 2020 The Author(s), published by Informa UK Ltd trading as Taylor & Francis Group). It carries the journal’s typeset pagination and CrossMark data — no postprint/pagination caveat applies. Citation: Döringer, S. (2021) ‘“The problem-centred expert interview”. Combining qualitative interviewing approaches for investigating implicit expert knowledge’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 24(3):265-278, DOI 10.1080/13645579.2020.1766777. Note the year: the article was published online 24 May 2020 but assigned to the 2021 issue — use 2021, 24(3):265-278.
- No quantitative model input. This is a methods citation, not a source of model figures.
Connections
Referenced by
Concepts (1): Research Methodology