ABSTRACT
Interviews have the potential to provide both a good knowledge base for the design of a quantitative study and a more in-depth understanding of socioecological relations, interactions, and behaviours in land use for monitoring purposes. Interviews of different kinds can be used to highlight what conditions, policies for financial subsidies, trends, or other influences impact land use, which in turn can show what issues are the most important for policymakers or monitoring to focus on. This chapter provides an overview of the different steps of designing and carrying out an interview study, including relevant research questions; the focus of different types of interviews; what to ask, to whom, and why; and how to code and analyze the material. The chapter describes common principles for qualitative research interviews with an emphasis on personal interviews, briefly showing how these are related to methods such as observations and focus group interviews.
