RES 6033 Module 2 Interview Protocol Example

Asking Leaders How They Decided: A Semi-Structured Interview Protocol, Alignment Matrix and Pilot Plan for a Multiple Case Study of Rural Obstetric Unit Decisions

Student Name

American College of Education

RES6033: Qualitative Research Designs

Module 2 Assignment

Instructor Name

October 19, 2026

Introduction

Module 1 settled on a multiple case study: four to six small hospitals whose boards, sometime in the last five years, voted on the future of their labor and delivery services. Interviews will be the main source of data, alongside board minutes, financial analyses and local news coverage. An interview protocol is the instrument in a qualitative study, and a weak one produces thin data no analysis can rescue. This paper states the study's research questions, presents a semi-structured protocol, shows how each interview question connects to a research question and describes how the protocol will be reviewed and piloted before data collection.

Research Questions

Two research questions guide the study. RQ1: How do leaders of small rural hospitals describe the process by which their hospital decided whether to keep or close its obstetric unit? RQ2: What financial, workforce, community and organizational considerations do leaders describe as shaping the outcome of that decision? RQ1 concerns process, the sequence of events and who took part; RQ2 concerns the reasons that tipped the decision one way or the other. Both are how and what questions about experience and meaning, suited to interviews.

Building the Protocol

Castillo-Montoya (2016) proposed a four-phase framework for refining interview protocols: ensuring that interview questions align with research questions, constructing an inquiry-based conversation, receiving feedback on the protocol and piloting it. Kallio et al. (2016), in a systematic methodological review, identified a similar sequence for semi-structured guides, from establishing that the method fits the study to presenting the finished guide. I followed both. The protocol is semi-structured because each hospital's decision will differ, and the interviewer must be free to follow what a participant raises while making sure every interview covers the same ground.

The Protocol

Opening. After consent and permission to record, the interview begins with a question designed to put the participant at ease and establish role: Tell me about your role at the hospital and how long you have been involved with it.

Grand tour. The central question invites a full account: Take me back to when the future of the obstetric unit first came up. What was happening, and how did the discussion begin? Probes: Who raised it first? What did people know at that point?

Process questions for RQ1. Walk me through what happened from there until the board made its decision. Who was involved at each point, and how? Were there moments when the decision could have gone the other way? Tell me about one of them. How did the community and the medical staff learn about the discussion, and how did they respond?

Considerations questions for RQ2. When you think about what mattered most in the final decision, what comes to mind? Probes, used only if the topic has not arisen: staffing, including physicians able to perform cesarean deliveries and nurses trained in labor and delivery; volume of births; finances; distance to the nearest hospital offering deliveries; community expectations. If you could have changed one condition, what would it have been, and would it have changed the outcome?

Reflection and closing. Looking back, what would you want another rural hospital leader facing this decision to know? Is there anything I did not ask that you think matters? Who else should I speak with to understand this decision? The last question supports referral within each case.

Why the Questions Are Worded This Way

DiCicco-Bloom and Crabtree (2006) described the semi-structured interview as built around a few open questions, with probes and follow-ups that let the participant's account lead. Three choices follow from that guidance. First, questions invite stories rather than ratings: take me back and walk me through ask for accounts of events, which produce detail that why questions often do not. Second, the list of considerations under RQ2 is held back as probes rather than asked outright. If I name finances first, every participant will talk about finances, and I will never learn whether something else mattered more. Third, no question assumes the decision was right or wrong. Asking whether there were moments the decision could have gone the other way invites reflection without asking participants to defend themselves.

Alignment Matrix

An alignment matrix in the appendix lists each interview question in rows and the two research questions in columns, marking which question each one serves. The opening question serves neither directly but builds rapport and records role, which matters for comparing accounts within a case. The grand tour and process questions serve RQ1. The considerations questions and the question about changing one condition serve RQ2. The reflection question serves both, since what leaders would pass on reveals what they believe mattered and how they would run the process again. Every research question is served by at least three interview questions, and no interview question lacks a purpose.

Versions for Different Participants

Each case will include four to six participants: the chief executive, one or two board members, a physician who delivered babies at the hospital and the nurse manager or a nurse from the unit. The core questions stay the same for all, which allows comparison within and across cases, but probes differ. Board members are asked about the information they received and how they weighed it. Clinicians are asked how they learned of the discussion and whether their views were sought. These adjustments follow the logic of a case study, which values the different vantage points of people inside the same bounded system.

Document Request List

Because a case study draws on documents, each hospital will be asked for board and committee minutes covering the decision period, any financial or feasibility analyses of the obstetric unit, staffing records showing obstetric coverage and public statements or letters to the community. Local newspaper coverage will be gathered separately. Documents will be reviewed before interviews when possible, so that questions can refer to specific meetings or reports and help participants recall events accurately.

Review and Pilot

Following the third and fourth phases of the refinement framework, the protocol will first be reviewed by two people: a professor who teaches qualitative methods in a school of public health and a retired rural hospital administrator who is not part of the study. Their comments will address clarity, sensitivity and whether the questions would yield what the research questions need. I will then pilot the protocol with two leaders from a hospital that has made a different service decision, closing a home health agency rather than an obstetric unit, so that the pilot tests the questions without using up potential participants. The pilot will check length, aiming for 60 minutes, and flag questions that draw short or rehearsed answers. Revisions after the pilot will be recorded in the audit trail with the reason for each change.

Conclusion

The protocol opens gently, asks for the story of the decision, holds suspected factors back as probes and closes by inviting reflection and referrals. An alignment matrix ties each question to a research question, versions for different roles allow comparison within cases and documents support recall. Expert review and pilot interviews will refine it before the first case begins. Module 3 turns to coding and themes. The protocol is a draft by design; the pilot is meant to change it.

References

Castillo-Montoya, M. (2016). Preparing for interview research: The interview protocol refinement framework. The Qualitative Report, 21(5), 811-831. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2016.2337

DiCicco-Bloom, B., & Crabtree, B. F. (2006). The qualitative research interview. Medical Education, 40(4), 314-321. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2006.02418.x

Kallio, H., Pietilä, A., Johnson, M., & Kangasniemi, M. (2016). Systematic methodological review: Developing a framework for a qualitative semi-structured interview guide. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72(12), 2954-2965. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13031