Qualitative interviewing as meaning-making: Theory, methods and practice – Virtual Workshop
Kathryn Roulston, University of Georgia

Hosted by The Qualitative Report at Nova Southeastern University (Virtual)
Friday, January 16, 2026
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM Eastern USA Time (45 Minute Lunch Break)
Registration Open Now

Workshop Description

This workshop provides a theoretically-informed and practice-oriented guide to qualitative interviewing. Designed for researchers at all career stages who use qualitative interviews, participants will explore the theory and practice of interviewing, along with how interview research can help us understand the social world. Participants will review a variety of approaches to qualitative interviewing, methodological implications for data generation, strategies to support quality research, practical steps for asking questions of interviewees, and a range of theoretical approaches for analyzing data. Emphasizing that interview data are co-constructed rather than transparently collected, the workshop explores how theoretical perspectives can be aligned with research design, transcription, and analysis practices. The goal of the workshop is to equip researchers with conceptual understanding and practical tools to design and conduct high-quality interview studies that produce meaningful insights into research questions concerning complex social phenomena.

Kathryn Roulston: Kathryn Roulston is Professor of Qualitative Research in the Mary Frances Early College of Education at the University of Georgia. Her research interests include qualitative research methods, qualitative interviewing, and analyses of talk-in-interaction. She is the author of Interviewing: A Guide to Theory and Practice (2022), Exploring the archives: A beginner’s guide for qualitative researchers (with K. deMarrais, 2021), and editor of Interactional Studies of Qualitative Research Interviews (2019). Her most recent books, Quests for questioners: Inventive approaches to qualitative interviews (2023) and Qualitative research design and methods: An introduction (with deMarrais and Copple, 2024), were awarded AESA Critics’ Choice Book Awards in 2024. She has contributed chapters to handbooks of qualitative research as well as articles to Qualitative Research, Qualitative Inquiry and the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, among other journals.