Primary Research: Doing an Interview! Due March 8

Secondary research involves receiving information through a book, an encyclopaedia, the Internet, or another written source. Someone else found out the information, and then they published the information for you to read.

Primary research involves finding out the information yourself! You do a survey, make observations, conduct an experiment, do an interview, experience something, create a journal entry, travel somewhere, take photographs yourself, collect specimens to study, etc.

You will be doing an interview to practice gathering primary research. We did one in class together. Remember that in an interview, you need to:

  • Know what you want to find out before starting the interview
  • Create questions ahead of time
  • Think about who would be the BEST person to interview
  • Ask permission to interview the person and/or to record their responses
  • Practice active listening through appropriate posture, facing the person, not interrupting, acknowledging responses, and using eye contact.
  • Add questions during the interview as new information comes up
  • Use phrases like, “So, what I hear you saying is….” when you need to clarify what they have said
  • Document the answers thoroughly (recording device, taking notes)
  • Thank the person for the interview
  • Review your notes and make them neat for looking at in the future

Do an interview of a family friend, family member, or someone in the community. Find out from them their experiences coming into Canada and whether or not they had any experiences with discrimination. 

Here are the questions we came up with in class that you can use (choose at least ten that you think are best):

  • What country did you originally live in?
  • What was it like there and why did you choose to leave?
  • Why did you come to Canada?
  • Do you miss anything about your home country?
  • What was your experience like coming to Canada?
  • How did you feel when you arrived in Canada?
  • What was the process like to get permission to come to Canada?
  • Was there anything about the process you did not like?
  • Was it hard to adjust to coming to Canada?
  • What were your first thoughts about living in Canada?
  • When you arrived did you ever feel discriminated against? How specifically?
  • Why do you think you were discriminated against?
  • Did you experience any other difficulties in Canada? Work-related difficulties?
  • Are you glad you came to Canada? Why?
  • Would you ever return to your home country?
  • Do you feel Canadian or still a part of your home culture, or both?
  • How long have you been in Canada?
  • And any other questions you may want to use (limit yourself to 2 that are your own creations and keep them on topic.)