Interview Procedure (Year 2)

 

  • 1) Reach out directly to the students you interviewed (list of students linked here) to arrange a time to have a Year 2 conversation! Feel free to adapt the following template:

    I hope this note finds you well. My name is X and I am a member of Dr. Alexis Redding's research team. We had a chance to connect last year as part of the Class of 2025 Study. I’m reaching back out again to schedule our interview about your second year of college. Could you offer a date and time that would work for you sometime in the next two weeks?  I’ll follow up with a Zoom link and calendar invite as soon as we settle on a time.

    Please do reach out if you have any questions or concerns. I'll be an email away!

    2) Calendar Invite: After a student has confirmed availability, send them a calendar invite with your Zoom link!

  • 3) Review your past interview: We invite you to take a moment to skim what you wrote in Form B last year prior to the start of the interview.

    4) Set Up: Be sure to log on to the Zoom room 10 minutes in advance

    Set Zoom to “Gallery View” so that the recording will capture both you and the student on screen

    Confirm that your microphone is working - sound quality is key for transcription

    Make sure you have a strong Internet connection

    Check to ensure that you do not have any branded items in view - i.e., Harvard pennant, a shirt with a high school or college name, or anything that might somehow inform the conversation.

    5) Turn on closed captioning so that Zoom generates a transcript for us.

    6) What if they don’t show up?

    If the student does not arrive by 8 minutes after their start time, send them an email asking if now is still a good time, sharing the Zoom link, and inviting them to reschedule if something has changed. (We don’t want them to drop out so they shouldn’t feel pressured to come or embarrassed if they forgot, so keep this message extra friendly.)

    If they don’t respond and don’t show up by 20 minutes after the designated start time, you can close the Zoom window and consider it a skipped appointment. Please follow up with the student directly to reschedule!

  • 7) Before you let the student into the Zoom room, hit record on your secondary device.

    8) Greet the student when they arrive and thank them for participating again for a second year! Be sure to meet them with warmth and make sure they feel comfortable. If you are not sure how to pronounce their name or if they use a nickname, be sure to ask them.

    • If there is any background noise that may be distracting, address it with them.

    • If there are people in the room, ask the student if there is a place where they can have some privacy for your chat.

    9) Ask the student if you can record - once they say yes:

    • Press record on Zoom (and choose “save to my computer”)

    • Immediately say “Thank you [NAME] for permission to record.” This MUST be recorded as part of the record of the interview.

    10) Since the student has already completed the consent process, please verbalize as the interview begins: “

    As you remember, last year we shared a consent form and process! Most important parts of the consent process include that fact that your participation is optional and you can change your mind at any time or skip any topics you would like. You will be given a pseudonym in our study and identifying details like your hometown won’t be shared. When we have completed this round of interviews (likely around August 15th), you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card for your participation. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

    UNLIKELY: If they decide not to participate, that’s no problem at all. Be sure to respond in a very positive way and don’t signal any disappointment. Thank them for meeting and say that they will receive an email from me to confirm that they have been removed from the study.

    Now, you are ready to begin! 

  • 11) From this point on, your challenge is to learn as much about the second year of college from the student without guiding or directing the conversation. It is very important that you don’t ask about any specific topics and that anything discussed originates from the participant.

    To open, you can say your own version of:

    “For our study, we want to know about your second year of college and what is important to you - so, like last year, I don’t have a list of topics that I want to cover. Instead, I want to ask - what stood out to you from the past year?”

    Student may react to the open-ended nature of the question and say something like “that’s so hard” or “I don’t know where to start”. If that happens, acknowledge whatever emotion they are experiencing and, if needed, probe a bit asking something general like “Well, what comes to mind for you. Things that stand out…?”

    DO try to feel comfortable with silence as students think back and choose what to say. It can take a bit for them to reflect and decide and may feel awkward on your end.

    DO NOT ask about any specific topics (“It can be anything: friends, academics, etc.”) or add a valence to the question (“Maybe something really great that happened…”)

    A lot of your responses will be non-verbal affirmations - head nodding, smiling, etc. You can also affirm what you are hearing with very general remarks.

    To keep the conversation going, you can use the following probes or create some of your own:

    GENERAL

    “What else stands out as you look back?”

    “Is there anything else you would like to share?”

    CLARIFYING

    “You mentioned [acronym]. Is that [your best guess, if you have one]?

    “I’m not sure what you mean by [x]…”

    SPECIFIC

    “What was [that event or experience] like?”

    “You mentioned [topic] - can you tell me more about that?”

    “Interesting, can you expand…

    12) At the end of the interview, thank them for their time and tell them how much you enjoyed learning about their experience. Then let them know that they will be entered into the lottery for the gift cards, which will be distributed when we are done with the study in early August. You can also tell them that they will hear from us next year and hope that they will come back for another conversation about their junior year.

    If the interview has been a positive experience, tell the student that we are still looking for participants and hope they might share our information with their 2026 classmates. You can paste our webpage into the chat:

    https://classof2026study.com/

  • You now have a few steps to complete to finalize the interview.

    Be sure to complete these steps immediately following the interview - plan your time blocks accordingly so you have 30 minutes to get everything finalized.

    13) Complete Form A:

    https://airtable.com/shr0DMBEQcLK7Zx6X

    If there is a student mental health concern, check the box to let me know and I will get an alert right away. I will reach out for additional details. Even if you are not sure if something hits the threshold of a concern, err on the side of caution and let me know so that we can decide together.

    14) Once you close the Zoom room, the files will automatically start to download to your computer. It can take up to 10 minutes for the files to process.

    Rename all of the files that downloaded from Zoom:

    First Last Sophomore (MM.DD.YY) Audio.m4a

    First Last Sophomore (MM.DD.YY) Transcript.txt

    First Last Sophomore (MM.DD.YY) Playback.m4u

    First Last Sophomore (MM.DD.YY) Video.mp4

    Be sure to include the space between each word/date

    (Note the designations at the end will already be part of the file name when they download)

    If there are files you do not have (i.e., playback), no worries!

    If there are files you have that are not on this list, same them as:

    Fist Last Sophomore (MM.DD.YY) Mystery File 1, Fist Last Sophomore (MM.DD.YY) Mystery File 2, etc. and keep the suffix as is.

    15) Upload the back-up audio file and name it:

    First Last Sophomore (MM.DD.YY) Backup Audio with whatever designation the file has at the end (i.e., mp3)

    16) Use this link to upload all of the files to Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/request/8KlK2ecaf0phmZm8gxkN

    If this Dropbox link is not working, please use https://wetransfer.com/ to upload the files and send it to dustinliu1@gmail.com.

    17) Complete Form B: https://airtable.com/shrjGVkvrwkvInaVE

    As part of this form, you will write a paragraph synopsis of the interview. Share highlights, main themes, things that stood out to you about this participant. These notes will become part of the research file.

    Note: You will need to permanently delete all of the files from your computer to comply with our IRB. Please wait until July 15th before you do this, in case there are any technical glitches with the upload.