Research on making interview questions among Vietnamese students: difficulties, reflection and solutions – a perspective of learning by doing

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article identifies students’ difficulties in making interview questions, their solutions and reflection on a good interview question. This firstly aims at enhancing our knowledge of doing interviews for research purposes, and secondly evaluates the effectiveness of a learning-by-doing based intervention on students’ critical thinking and knowledge formation. The study applied a survey to collect data. Then qualitative content analysis with the use of Atlas.ti (v.9 for Windows) was employed to analyze data. In terms of the students’ difficulties, a majority of students found it hard to convey exactly their ideas and make relevant questions to the topic. They also found it challenging to make questions with appropriate difficulty levels for the public audience. To solve the problems, the students mostly did self-investigation and asked for opinions and guidance from peers and teachers, which helped them create their zone of proximal development. Regarding the characteristics of a good question, most students concluded that its content with appropriate difficulty level and its coherence make it accessible for interviewees, while some students also required the language to be concise, polite and not academic. Students’ reflection shows that the intervention helps them form their knowledge of interview questions and hone their critical thinking.