Emerging Adulthood

In interviewing the participant, be sure to tell him/her that the interview is for a project for your course in development. Assure him/her that he/she has the right not to answer any of the questions and may stop the interview at any time. Let him/her know that no one will see the answers to the interview questions and that their names will not be used. In giving the interview, write down as much of his/her responses as you can. You might consider tape recording the interview to avoid taking time to write the answers during the interview. Be sure to ask permission to use a tape recorder and assure him/her that the tape will be erased.

Feel free to add questions to the interview as appropriate while talking to the participant, but be sure to cover all of the issues included. Many of the questions are meant to have more than one or two sentence answers. You will need to practice using follow-up probes to get longer answers: –Can you tell me more about that? –I don’t understand. Can you give me an example? –How does that make you feel? –How important is that to you? –using “uh-huh” and head nodding may also lead to more responding

Incorporate questions about culture as appropriate. Culture includes religion, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, age, gender, etc.

– What is your occupation?

– How do you feel about your job?

– What would you change about it, if you could?

– How does your job or career look compared to the vision you had when you were younger? What do you want for the future career-wise? What are you doing to get there?

– What do you do for fun?

– What does your level of physical activity look like? How has this changed as you have gotten older?

– What does your internet/social networking involvement look like?

– What is your relationship status?

– Describe your family. What is your idea of family?

– Describe your friends. What do you do for fun with them? How often do you see them?

– Where/How do you meet new friends/relationship partners?

– If you have children, how has your marriage/relationship(s) changed since you had children? How?

-If you do not have children or not married, do you want this? Why or why not? What are your expectations for a future family?

– How have your friendships changed since you were younger? What activities do you do with your friends?

– How was dating different when you were a teen from how it is today?

– Are your friends more of the same sex or the other sex? Has this changed? – Do you and your partner have friends of the opposite sex? How did you feel about that?

– What are your views about divorce?

– What do you think are the guidelines for a successful marriage/relationship?

– When you have a personal problem, to whom do you turn?

– What are your thoughts about sex before marriage?

– Is there anything you’ve learned that you didn’t know during your teen years?

Student question. Based on what you’ve learned, ask at least one more question; what else

would you like to know about this person’s life?

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After you describe the interview, discuss your reaction (three paragraphs).

1. What did you learn? Did anything surprise you?

2. How did you feel during the interview?

3. What changes (if any) have occurred in your perception of the prenatal/first year? (What did you think before? What do you think now?)