Serious Interview example essay topic

Schedule of Questions 1. Why did you pick running? 2. How long have you been running? 3.

How many different coaches did you have before coming to college? 4. How many different coaches have you had during college? 5. Which coach was your favorite? 6.

Why was he / she your favorite? 7. Which coach was you least favorite? 8. Why was he / she you least favorite? 9.

What did you look for in a running program when you were deciding on a college? [10. What made you choose Lamar's' program.] Schedule of Questions For my interview I selected Chris Williams, John Messner, Travis Tolbert, and Marc Abraham. I selected each of these people for different reasons. I picked Chris, who is a twenty-two year old former track athlete at Lamar, because he has many experiences with track teams and he has also completed his running career and can see things from the other side. I picked John, who is a twenty-four year old assistant coach on the track team at Lamar, because he also has many experiences with track teams and he can also see things from the other side.

I picked Travis and Mark, who are both current track athletes at Lamar, because they are seeing things as an athlete sees them. Which will help me to understand better what athletes are looking for during their running career. My opening with each person was mostly the same. I began with a casual greeting, because each interviewee was already well acquainted with me.

I shook their hand and then proceeded with a little small talk about school. After I established rapport I proceeded to the orientation phase of the opening. For this I just explained that I was doing some research for a study I was doing on runners and what they liked. Then I asked if it would be ok if I asked them a few questions. I also tailored my dress to make the person fee as though this was serious.

The other runners are used to seeing me in my running clothes and joking around, so I thought that if I dressed more official the person might feel more like I was doing something serious. So I wore a nice polo style shirt with khaki pants. For my closing I use a clearinghouse technique. I asked the person if there was anything else they would like to add or if they had any questions about my study. This worked well, it let them know that we were wrapping the interview up, but gave them a chance to add anything else they needed to. I recorded the information I received by taking notes and I also recorded the interviews with an audio recorder.

After the interview I went back and listed to the audio and took notes from that. The communication between the interviewee's and me was very good. I think that I made them feel a little uncomfortable at first because we had a change in the normal conditions that we saw each other. Then they seemed to get into the interview and gave me some really useful information that I can use later. There was not really that much non-verbal communication coming from most of the interviewee's. The only one who really use a lot of hand motion and non-verbal was Chris.

There were not really any unforeseen problems except for the short period of being uncomfortable because of my attire. For my location I picked a classroom in the gym at Lamar. This, I believe helped them realize that it was a serious interview and there were not any outside distractions. It did not seem to cause any negative problems by using this location. Because of these interviews I learned many things about interviewing. One of the things I learned was that I, as the interviewer, have to control the interview and not let the other person lead off onto other topics.

Another thing that I learned was that it is important to ask good secondary questions, so that I can really get the meat of their answer. And finally I learned that location and dress really can affect the interview in a positive or a negative way. I feel that because of my location and my attire the interviews went smoothly. If I were to do this project over again I would probably do several things different.

First I would select other athletes from different schools who did not know me as well so that they did not feel like they had to tell me certain things. Next I would, also select more people to interview so that I could get more data on the subject. I will probably do this anyway. If I had to do this over again I would also have a partner who is not an athlete do some of the interviews, because he / she would be able to get information I would not get or might not pick up from the interview. I might also try some sort of survey to pass out to all of the athletes, so that I could get even more input.