aes16

David Roberts (RobertsBrown)

A problem for evaluators is that what people 'Say' about phenomena in an interview context is often different from what they 'Do' in the everyday world, in vivo.  Our everyday behaviours and thinking are largely based on implicit knowledge that is not brought to conscious awareness.  The implicit knowledge is 'chunked' into discrete schemata: mental representations about whatever we are thinking about or acting towards. Such schemas allow us to act without consciously thinking about what we will do and provide the foundation for our conscious thoughts. 

Practitioners face a challenge to identify the broad characteristics of the schemata that are most likely to be pertinent to the subject of inquiry and design interviews that are best able to trigger schemata similar to those active in the subject of inquiry. The literature and my preliminary study suggest some guidelines for the use of elicitation techniques.