Using interviews to explore experiences of disability in sport and physical activity

Abstract

In this chapter we explore how interviews can be a useful method of qualitative data collection to be used with disabled athletes. Firstly, we offer a definition of interviews and provide examples of how this method has been used effectively across multiple disciplines within disability sport and physical activity research. Secondly, we explore how people have been conceptualised as ‘different’ and the models by which disability has been explained and (mis)understood. Thirdly, we draw upon our own experiences of conducting interviews with research participants who have experienced spinal cord injury (SCI) and have subsequently engaged in disability sport (James) and physical activity for rehabilitation (Toni). In doing so, we reflect on how we were required to challenge assumptions informed by our own non-disabled, sexed and gendered bodies, inviting the reader to learn from these ‘confessions’ in informing their own research practices. Finally, having provided some of these experiences in the ‘field’, we offer some brief suggestions for taking a more informed, reflexive and empathetic approach to interviewing disabled research participants in sport and physical activity.