Assignment 4a,b,c

For this assignment we were asked to interview people on a particular topic to gain experience with the interviewing process.

There were a selection of topics to choose from or the choice to create your own based on previous work done within the classes. Myself and three others decided to base our questions on our recent bingo experience as there seemed to be some debate on the atmosphere within the casino, our question was "how do people feel within a casino environment?" by doing this we wanted to see the similarities and differences people had on the topic.

We were to avoid asking the interviewees the question directly but questions which could allow an interpretation to be made and suggest possible answers to our main question. We also had to avoid closed, yes/no questions as this wouldn't allow for enough information to be gained and provide subjects with an information sheet preparing them for what was in store. After having read the information sheet they were then to sign a consent form if they were willing to proceed with the interview.

A pilot interview was conducted first to test how useful our questions were at providing us with the information we wanted. We then went on to find our real subjects.

Three females and one male were used all of which gave consent to participate. The questions we asked each of them were;
- What kind of environment/situations make you nervous?
-how do you feel when your spending money?
-how much do you generally spend on a night out?
-what do you usually spend your money on, on a night out?
-is there anything you feel your addicted to and what?
-what are your views on gambling?
-what do you participate in that could be considered as gambling i.e lottery, scratch cards, bingo, etc?
-who do you generally go to the casino with?
-what do you go to the casino for?

The three females all seemed to feel nervous within the same situations, such as crits or tutorials whereas the male said he felt nervous in the casino as its dark and your being watched.
They all seemed to see going to the casino as a bit of fun and didn't take it seriously, and thought it was fine to gamble as long as you had the money and set limits before hand. One girls family especially her granddad all go the casino so for her it was quite a familiar scene which may contribute to her views on the subject. The male however didn't see money as a issue when it came to gambling and thought you should just do it as he saw gambling as liberal.
The casino wasn't just seen as a place to gamble but a place for social activity, where you could go with friends, family, or boyfriends for a drink or even a meal. The females generally went with males maybe suggesting they see the casino as more of a male thing to do.
One girl preferred the casino to night clubs as she would prefer to spend her money there and thought nightclubs were a bit rowdy and busy making it hard to find people and therefore she felt more relaxed within the casino environment.
All of the interviewees stated they participated in activities classed as gambling, the lottery seemed to be popular with the girls whereas the boy seemed to bet more on sporting events such as rugby and the horse races. All the girls admitted they were addicted to shopping and the boy claimed he wasn't addicted to anything suggesting that girls are possibly more honest.

Ideally we would have liked the opportunity to approach big gamblers with our questions but this would have required consent from the casino which would have been impossible to get within our short time frame. If we were ever to be approached with a task like this again then i would definitely like to interview the big gamblers and get there views on the topic.

I found doing these interviews to be less uncomfortable than i thought they would be and have definitely found them to be a useful experience.