Date: 12/10/2026
Masterclass in Advanced Qualitative Interviewing: Designing and Conducting Interviews in Complex Contexts
At a glance
When: Thursday 12 November 2026, 10.00–16.00
Where: University of Southampton, Room 2211, Building 85, Highfield Campus
Who it is for: All SCDTP students and postdoctoral fellows. All welcome.
About the masterclass:
The quality, depth and ethical integrity of interview data are shaped by how researchers frame questions, establish rapport, attend to power and difference, respond to emotion or uncertainty, and make decisions in the moment. These issues become especially important when interviewing people who may be vulnerable or marginalised, participants who hold institutional or professional power, people from different cultural contexts, or when discussing sensitive experiences.
This training will explore how to enhance qualitative interviews through careful question design, probing, sequencing, listening and reflexive adaptation. It will focus on the craft of interviewing: how to create conditions in which participants can offer detailed, meaningful and ethically gathered accounts. Through short inputs, discussion, worked examples and structured practical activities, you will consider how to elicit rich responses; adapt interviewing approaches when working across differences in power, culture, age, professional status and lived experience; navigate sensitive topics with care, including emotional responses, disclosure, silence, uncertainty and boundaries; develop rapport without compromising ethical distance, researcher safety or methodological rigour; use reflexivity to make principled decisions in unpredictable research encounters; review and strengthen elements of your own interview design or fieldwork approach.
Facilitators:
Dr Maged Zakher is Senior Lecturer in Cross-Cultural Management and Faculty Lead for Learning and Teaching and Student Experience at the University of Northampton. His work includes qualitative methodology, cross-cultural research and doctoral education. He is co-author of Enhanced Interviews: Creative Approaches to Qualitative Research Interviewing (Policy Press, 2026).
Dr Hoda Wassif is Associate Professor of Medical and Dental Education and Portfolio Lead for Postgraduate Health Education and CPD at the University of Bedfordshire. Her work spans qualitative research, health professions education and researcher development. She is co-author of Enhanced Interviews: Creative Approaches to Qualitative Research Interviewing (Policy Press, 2026).
Who:
This interactive masterclass is for doctoral researchers who already have a basic understanding of qualitative interviewing and want to develop their practice for more complex research contexts. You will be invited in advance to contribute questions, methodological dilemmas and brief details of your research through an online Padlet. These contributions will help shape examples and activities on the day. You may also bring a draft interview guide or a small number of questions to work on during the masterclass.
How to join:
Shortly beforehand you will receive a link to a short pre-session Padlet so that the facilitators can tailor examples and activities to your research contexts and questions.
