In this video, we will talk about the process of transcribing an interview. Transcribing is transforming your audio recording into a text, ideally, a written text. This process, although it can be quite time-consuming, it's important if you want to conduct a good analysis. It is also a very good way to get familiar with your data. You might be wondering, "Do I really have to write down all that was said? Why can I not use software or an online service to auto transcribe this interview?" It's true, software exist that can do this. However, and especially if you are not familiar with qualitative research, we recommend you to transcribe your first interview yourself. Our experience tell us that you learn a lot about the process of interviewing, the relevance of your interview guide, and your role as interviewer while transcribing. Listening to the interviews again, stopping and transcribing takes you back to the moment of the interview, its atmosphere and the context to what was said and how it was said. It is quite surprising to listen to the audio recording again, and hear the conversation from the outside. We often hear new answers and expressions that we either forgot, or did not quite absorb during the moment of interviewing. Transforming those heard words into a written text helps you to go into depth with the data, produce a better analysis, and thereby enrich your understanding of the patient perspective. You might also become painfully aware of the mistakes you made there in the interview, which will lead you to avoid these mistakes in the future, and become a better interviewer. Therefore, we kindly request you as a first assignment for this module to transcribe your interview, either the whole interview or those parts you consider most relevant to your inquiry. You should transcribe the first interview, word by word, or verbatim, as it is called in jargon of qualitative research. We all know how things can be said between the lines. This is where we also recommend you to take notes during the interview of not only what was said, but also how it was said. The facial expressions, the hesitations, long silence, expressions of doubt, laughter, all these elements of non-verbal communication provide us with valuable information and help us understand the true meaning of what was said. For example, if the person said something ironically. Depending on the aim of your study, you may avoid transcribing certain parts of the interview, for example, if the interviewee start talking about something that is not really relevant for your study, like his or her relationship with his or her dog. When you transcribe your interview, make sure that all personal information is deleted or changed into codes, such as pseudonyms, in order to protect the anonymity of the interviewee. This is quite important as protecting the interviewee's privacy is part of the basis of the ethics of qualitative health research. If you took notes during or right after the interview, you can link this with corresponding passages of the transcription. For example, you saw a very clear face expression when talking about side effects, and you briefly noted it in your notebook, then when transcribing, it is a good idea to include a common link to the part of the interview focused on side effects. Bodily reactions to a specific questions are an important piece of information to be taken into consideration when doing the analysis, and therefore, it should be added to your transcriptions. Spend a maximum of two hours transcribing. In the next lecture, we will look at data analysis and coding. Thank you for your attention.
