Getting reticent young male participants to talk: Using artefact-mediated interviews to promote discursive interaction

Abstract

During a pilot study that used interviews to collect data from young male apprentices about construction site safety, we were confronted with limited verbal responses. This article is about how we explored this research problem of ameliorating unresponsive interview interactions. The article reviews the options that previous researchers have trialled and developed, and specifically focuses on artefact-mediated interviews conducted with young male participants. We focus on the use of images within artefact-mediated interviews to draw out data from less communicative subjects. Our reflection upon this process proposes that the use of both abstract and concrete images within an artefact-mediated interview can produce diverse and enriched forms of data.