ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the main characteristics of 'an interviewer' and 'an interviewee'. Educational research reports usually give scant attention to the style, characteristics, status and bias of an interviewer although these may be crucial factors in the quality and reliability of the information collected. In an interview, like any other instance of social interaction, both individuals influence each other. As such, every interview is a unique interaction however closely the interviewer tries to obey the 'rules' and 'standardise' the interview. One of the essential skills of interviewing must be questioning ability. Inconsistency in framing questions raises issues of interviewer reliability not just between interviewers but even for one interviewer on different occasions or during the interaction of some interviewers with specific questions and with some respondents. Many people believe that the confidential information collected by an interviewer gives him or her considerable power.
