Validating explanatory qualitative research: enhancing the interpretation of interviews in urban planning and transportation research

Abstract

The literature on qualitative interview methodology includes little guidance on how to use interviews for explanatory purposes. Still, within many fields of research, explanatory interview research could play an important role, sometimes in combination with quantitative methods on research topics where the latter methods have traditionally been dominant. Using a study of influences of built environment characteristics on travel as a case, this paper shows an example of how such explanatory interviewing and interview interpretation could be done within a mixed-methods framework. A key tool in the study used as an example was an interpretation scheme developed for explanatory purposes. The interpretation scheme requested the researchers to write down what could be inferred from each interview as answers to each sub-question derived from the main research questions of the study. The scheme was at the same time flexible, allowing sub-questions to be included if new aspects relevant to the topic were discovered during the interviews. While obviously not being the only way to carry out explanatory qualitative interview research, the method has proven to be fruitful in a number of studies on built environment and travel over the last fifteen years.