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Session Description

Free ticketed event
In this workshop, participants will learn about best practices for conducting individual interviews on research studies. The session will go beyond practical tactics, such as developing interview protocols, to include the many key nuances of how interviewers adapt to the interview to collect high-quality data. Topics to be addressed include personal interactions, creating an accessible environment, and other subtleties that talented interviewers employ to ensure meaningful conversations. Through case studies, participants will become familiar with how to successfully begin an interview, develop a rapport with participants, strategically probe, assure a high-quality audio capture, mitigate difficult situations, and wrap up while leaving the door open for future correspondence.
There will also be a discussion of when it is appropriate to deviate from initial objectives or protocol and why.

After this workshop, participants will feel more confident about preparing for and moderating conversations. This confidence will translate into more meaningful discussions and, in turn, improve the data collection process in qualitative research.

Although there are crossover skills for facilitating individual interviews and focus groups, the focus of this workshop will be on interviewing individuals.

The workshop might include creating case studies or an interactive role-play scenario, and might leverage real interview data.

Speakers

1. Dr. Sindia M. Rivera-Jiménez

   University of Florida

   Dr. Rivera-Jiménez is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Engineering Education (EED) and an affiliate faculty to the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida. She is the director of the Engineering Communities & Participatory Change (ECoPAC) Research Group. Her research focuses on understanding the role of engineering communities while enacting their agency in participatory and transformational change. She is particularly interested in broadening the participation of minoritized communities by studying the role of professional development in shaping organizational cultures. As an education practitioner, she also looks at evidence-based practices to incorporate social responsibility skills, collaboration, and inclusive environments into the curriculum. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez with a B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. She earned an NSF RIEF award recognizing her effort in transitioning from a meaningful ten-year teaching faculty career into engineering education research. Before her current role, she taught STEM courses at diverse institutions such as Hispanic serving (HSI), community college, and R1 public university. Outside the classroom, she serves as a creator and facilitator of professional development workshops for students, faculty, and industry on social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering.

2. Dr. Jerrod A Henderson

   University of Houston - COE

   Dr. Jerrod A. Henderson (“Dr. J”) is an Assistant Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston (UH). He began his higher education pursuits at Morehouse College and North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University where he earned degrees in both Chemistry and Chemical Engineering as a part of the Atlanta University Center’s Dual Degree in Engineering Program. While in college he was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar which afforded him the opportunity to intern at NASA Langley. He also earned distinction as a Phi Beta Kappa member and an American Chemical Society Scholar. Dr. Henderson completed his Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his time as a graduate student, he was a NASA Harriet G. Jenkins Graduate Fellow. Dr. Henderson has dedicated his career to increasing the number of students who are on pathways to pursue STEM careers. He believes that exposing students to STEM early will have a lasting impact on their lives and academic pursuits. He is the co-founder of the St. Elmo Brady STEM Academy (SEBA). SEBA is an educational intervention aimed at exposing underrepresented fourth and fifth-grade students and their families to hands-on STEM experiences. Henderson's research interests are in engineering identity development among Black men and engineering student success. He was most recently recognized by INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine as an Inspiring STEM Leader, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) Outstanding Young Alumni Award, and Career Communications Group with a Black Engineer of the Year Award for college-level promotion of engineering education.

3. Dr. James L. Huff

   Harding University

   Dr. James Huff is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education and Honors College Senior Faculty Fellow at Harding University. He conducts transdisciplinary research on identity that lies at the nexus of applied psychology and engineering education. Dr. Huff received the NSF CAREER award (No. 2045392) to advance research on professional shame as a pernicious force that powerfully affects individual well-being and cultural equity in domains of engineering education and practice. As Director of the Beyond Professional Identity (BPI) lab, Dr. Huff has mentored numerous undergraduate students, doctoral students, and academic professionals from more than 10 academic disciplines in using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as an interview-based qualitative research method to examine identity in a variety of contexts. Additionally, he has offered numerous workshops in using IPA and regularly offers consulting with other investigators in how they apply the methodology. Dr. Huff received his B.S. in computer engineering from Harding University, his M.S. in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, and his Ph.D. in engineering education research from Purdue.