Cultural perspective in open-ended interviews – The importance of being adaptable

When conducting open-ended qualitative interviews, it is important to remember that the method originates from the Western perspective. In China we encountered a number of problems when using this method, with little information on dealing with them in the literature, or if information does exist it has not attracted enough attention in the research community to be readily accessible. We therefore saw a need to uncover these difficulties, encouraging a broader discussion about these types of cross-cultural issues and how to handle them in research situations. The differences between the Chinese interview situation and the European interview situation will be presented in seven points. We will present examples and discuss potential sources for these problems and their implications for ecological validity.