DISSERTATION: Empathy Interviews

About This Assignment

An empathy interview is a technique researchers use for phenomenological research – a qualitative research design. In this assignment, you will conduct empathy interviews to understand a problem of practice from an interviewee’s perspective and prepare a summary report of your findings.

The following video from Dr. Hamlin contrasts qualitative and quantitative research, describes empathy interviews in detail, offers guidance for conducting empathy interviews, and highlights possible outcomes of an empathy interview.

Submission

Use the following outline to organize your report:

• Summary of Interview I
• Summary of Interview II
• Summary of Interview III
• Summary Conclusions
• Revisions to Problem Statement
• Prompts for Interviews

Directions

Use the following framework as you prepare your report:

Results (4 points)

• Describes findings from three empathy interviews in a study setting
• Each interview should be between 20-40 minutes in duration
• Two interviews with individuals who deal directly with the problem
• One interview with a decision-maker who can contribute to solving the problem
• Interviews can be in-person or via Zoom

Interview Summaries (4 points)

• Provides a short, 150–250-word summary for each interview
• Each summary focuses on articulating the problem
• Each summary focuses on the root causes of the problem

Descriptive Narratives (4 points)

• Each summary should contain descriptive narrative information or
• Each summary should contain quotations drawn from the interview

Conclusion Section (4 points)

• Contains a 100-150-word conclusion section that summarizes findings from all three interviews
• Identifies commonalities or inconsistencies

Problem Statement Revisions (4 points)

• Contains a 100-200-word problem statement section covering intended revisions to the problem statement
• Describes how the working problem statement will be revised based on empathy interview findings

Interview Prompts (4 points)

• Includes three prompts that guide the interviews
• Prompts are designed to encourage the interviewee to discuss their views on the problem and its causes

Resources

• High Tech High Guide to Empathy Interviews
• High Tech High Video: Norms for Conducting Empathy Interviews
• Sample empathy interview video

Guidelines

Assessment

See the point values listed above and the rubric below to see how this assignment will be scored.

Academic Integrity

• Getting help from your peers on the assignment is not
• Collaborating, or completing the assignment with others in the class, is not
• Copying or reusing previous work is not
• Open-book research for the assignment is permitted and encouraged.