Elicitation Techniques

Elicitation techniques are methods employed to obtain information from individuals when they may be hesitant, unaware, or unable to share details openly. These techniques are particularly valuable in sociological research and encompass a variety of strategies, including interviews, observations, surveys, focus groups, questionnaires, and task analyses. Interviews can be structured or open-ended, allowing researchers to gather nuanced responses. Observations provide insights into behaviors that may not be fully articulated by participants, while surveys enable data collection from larger groups through standardized questions.

Focus groups facilitate discussions among participants, potentially enriching the data through shared perspectives. Task analysis involves breaking down activities to improve efficiency, often in professional settings. Some techniques, like photo elicitation, incorporate visual elements to deepen understanding, while vignettes present hypothetical scenarios to elicit more thoughtful responses. Overall, elicitation techniques aim to bridge power imbalances between researchers and subjects, fostering authentic information sharing and yielding richer insights into social phenomena.

Published in: 2021

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Subject Terms

Elicitation Techniques

Abstract

Elicitation techniques are employed when people are reluctant to share information because it is embarrassing or inconvenient, but they are also useful in situations where people are not necessarily resisting the sharing of information, but may be unable to share it or unaware of the need for the information. Elicitation techniques are employed specifically when one needs to obtain information from human beings rather than from written sources, observations of the natural world, and similar means. The information obtained through elicitation techniques may be conveyed verbally, in writing, or in the form of behavior that can be observed. Sociologists and researchers from many other fields use this information in their research.

Overview

Sociological research encompasses a wide range of topics and subjects of study, and each of these can require its own particular methods of acquiring data, so creating a comprehensive list of all elicitation techniques is challenging. At a minimum, such a list must include techniques ranging from interviews, observations, surveys, focus groups, questionnaires, and task analyses. A brief description of the characteristics of each of these is helpful, particularly because some of these techniques are quite similar to one another.

The interview is a technique that involves one or more researchers communicating with a research subject in order to ask questions and record the subject's responses. An interview may be conducted in person, over the phone, or over the Internet. Interviews are usually conducted through a verbal exchange, though it is possible to use written communication as well, although this begins to cross the line into something that looks more like a survey or questionnaire. Interview questions may be prepared in advance and posed in a defined sequence, or they may be open ended, allowing for a wider range of responses and the possibility of exploring topics the researcher has not foreseen (Zupan & Babbage, 2017).

Observations involve one or more researchers watching the behavior of groups or individuals in particular situations and recording notes about the behavior for later reference. This technique is often used when the participants are not able to explain their behavior fully, as is the case with young children. It is also useful in situations where the way participants would describe their behavior when questioned directly might differ from how they actually behave.

An example of this can be seen in research about dietary choices, where people tend to report a healthier diet than they actually follow—observation could reveal what people actually decide to eat, as opposed to what they say they eat. This technique can be difficult to use, because it may require the researcher to make assumptions about the meaning of certain behaviors, and this raises the possibility that the researcher might misinterpret the subjects' motivation for the behavior (Kokko & Lagerkvist, 2017).

Surveys elicit information from subjects by asking a series of prepared questions, usually in writing. The subject provides an answer to each question, and then returns the survey to the researcher, who collects the responses from multiple subjects and compares them to see if any trends emerge. Surveys are helpful when researchers wish to collect information from a large number of subjects, because they are less time consuming than interviews, and they produce a smaller, more manageable amount of data. If one were to interview one hundred subjects for an hour each, the interviews alone would take many days, and the transcripts of the interviews would run into hundreds of pages. A survey, in contrast, could be distributed via email to all one hundred subjects with the click of a mouse, and the responses could be returned electronically for analysis. The downside of using surveys is that once the survey has been distributed, it cannot be changed, whereas an interviewer can respond in the moment to unexpected information supplied by the subject and pursue it as another line of inquiry (Setiawan, 2016).

The focus group is an elicitation technique that is similar to interviewing, but instead of one participant being asked questions, the researcher meets with a group of participants and asks them questions about the topic. This format can be somewhat richer in the information it gleans than regular interviews, because the subjects have the opportunity to hear each others' responses, and this can change or deepen their own thinking about the questions, causing them to see the topic in new ways. Often this leads to rewarding new discoveries, but it also has the potential for becoming a distraction, so participants in focus groups must be selected with care.

Questionnaires are often confused with surveys, so some explanation of the difference is helpful. A survey is a type of elicitation technique, and one of the tools used to conduct a survey is a questionnaire—the questionnaire is the list of questions used in a survey. Survey participants tend to confuse the survey with the questionnaire, especially when the survey is conducted over the phone, meaning that they do not have a chance to see the written questionnaire (Carrizo, Dieste, & Juristo, 2014).

Task analysis is not used as often as many other elicitation techniques, and therefore most people are not as familiar with it. Task analysis is similar to observation in its operation, as it involves one or more researchers watching participants perform tasks that make up some part of their daily routine, whether at work or in their personal time. These observations are then analyzed to determine what they might mean, if they might be adjusted in order to produce a different outcome, and so forth.

Task analysis is often used in the workplace to try to describe the workflow of certain functions, such as how to prepare a meal in a restaurant, or how to change an oil filter in a garage. In the context of work, task analysis usually has the goal of making the work more efficient and thereby reducing costs. By identifying the individual steps that make up a task and studying how they are performed and why, task analysis can sometimes identify steps that are outdated or redundant.

For example, a library that is requesting an article for a patron might have a step in its process to double check that the library does not already own the article, before purchasing it. Task analysis could reveal that this step is no longer needed as it was before the library was automated, because today the library's search software already performs the check on its own.

Some elicitation techniques incorporate characteristics from several other techniques. One of these is the use of vignettes or hypotheticals. These are imaginary situations that the researcher may describe and then ask the participant to comment on. This can help the participant to think about responses more deeply than might otherwise be the case, since the use of a vignette has the effect of making the question more real and at the same time more complex and nuanced.

For example, if a sociologist were interested in studying the phenomenon of age discrimination in small businesses, one approach would be to ask subjects a yes or no question as to whether they think age discrimination is bad, whether they would ever think it was justified to engage in it, and so on. Or, the researcher might instead present subjects with a scenario to think about before responding, and use a scenario in which the subject must take on the role of a small business owner trying to decide whether or not to hire an elderly person for the position of cashier in a fast-paced coffee shop. This would give the researcher access to the same type of information about the participants' views on the topic, but in a manner that could potentially be more revealing and more insightful (Kapantzoglou, Fergadiotis & Restrepo, 2017).

Researchers periodically develop new elicitation techniques, or devise new forms for existing techniques. One example of the latter is photo elicitation. Photo elicitation starts out with the same basic technique as an interview, but then introduces an added dimension. During the interview, the researcher shows the subject a photograph that is related to the topic of discussion. The photograph then becomes an additional mechanism through which information may be gleaned from the subject. Photo elicitation brings to mind the old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words," yet it also draws upon insights from neuroscience. The processing of visual imagery utilizes different parts of the brain than those devoted to verbal interactions, so using a photograph as an elicitation technique can be a way of helping subjects to access new levels of awareness.

Depending on the goal of the interview, different types of images may be used. Images tend to be categorized as general, individual, and personal. General images are the type that can be recognized by almost anyone, such as bridges, mountains, furniture, and so on. Individual images are recognizable by a particular person—the person's workplace, home, automobile, etc. Personal images are like individual images, but more intimate and evocative. These can depict relatives, pets, or memorable experiences from the person's life. People tend to have stronger responses to personal and individual images than they do to general images (Barton, 2015).

Further Insights

Sociologists favor the use of elicitation techniques for many reasons. One factor is that elicitation techniques can help overcome the imbalance in power that is often present between a subject and the researcher. In many cases, the researcher may have multiple positions of advantage compared with the participant—more education or a higher standard of living, for example. The more noteworthy these differences are, the greater their potential for interfering with the research or preventing participants from expressing themselves as fully as they otherwise might.

An elicitation technique can neutralize the power imbalance and minimize its effect, by directing the subject's attention to the technique and thus preventing it from remaining on the imbalance. This is frequently seen in research involving children, where the children are instructed to engage in some activity, such as building a sand castle, while the researcher interviews them or observes them. Because part of their attention is devoted to the task, they tend to speak more freely. In addition to building activities such as the sand castle, participants may be asked to arrange objects according to some system, or to explain how some mechanism functions. Whatever the task, its effectiveness at elicitation is more or less the same (Aguirre-Arredondo & Carrizo-Moreno, 2017).

The use of elicitation techniques is also favored because it can help research subjects to share information in more authentic and complete ways. Too often in research, particularly in the social sciences, the questions that researchers ask are too connected to previous studies in the area, to the extent that the work of their predecessors places limits on how they think about issues. This can cause researchers to ask questions that are too narrow or too suggestive, and to force participants to use categories that may no longer apply in the real world.

An example of this is a questionnaire that asks respondents to categorize their previous employment experiences as positive, negative, or neutral, simply because this was how previous studies framed the question. Before the subject even provides a response, the researcher has already cut off a wealth of information that a more detailed answer might have provided. By forcing responses to fit into a set of narrow, outdated categories, this type of research would be likely to overlook many subtle details (Vásquez-Bravo et al., 2014).

Issues

Ideas for elicitation techniques and for determining which techniques to apply in a given situation sometimes come from disciplines other than sociology and related fields. Businesses contribute significantly to this idea exchange, due to their interest in eliciting information from customers about current products and services, as well as about products and services under development. Companies are constantly trying to find more effective ways of learning what people want and why, leading them to make extensive use of surveys, focus groups, and other techniques. This raises concerns for some that it may be inappropriate for sociologists and other academics to take their lead from the business world. Others worry that elicitation techniques popular with businesses may cause some people to become overexposed to them so that the techniques are no longer as effective as they previously had been. It is not clear what, if anything, can be done about either of these issues, but being aware of the potential problems is an important first step.

Occasionally there are concerns about the way some elicitation techniques may influence the information being collected. This is reminiscent of the well-known Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which states that for any particle in the universe, it is possible at a given instant to know either its location or its velocity, but not both, because the act of measuring one quality affects the other. Here, the concern is that the elicitation technique being used with a subject may influence how that subject provides information.

To use an extreme example, if a researcher were to conduct interviews with participants over dinner with alcohol served, the consequences could be disastrous if a participant became intoxicated or experienced some other type of diminished capacity. To prevent incidents like this, most research must undergo institutional review to make sure that the design is likely to be successful in its collection of data, without placing any of the participants in a harmful or unpleasant position.

Terms & Concepts

Fieldwork: The part of research that involves collecting data out in the real world, as opposed to in the lab or an office.

Focus Groups: An elicitation technique in which a researcher asks a group of people questions about the topic being researched.

Photo Elicitation: A technique that uses photographic images to help elicit information from participants.

Task Analysis: An elicitation technique that involves researchers dissecting a task into its individual steps, usually to determine if there are easier, cheaper, or more efficient ways of accomplishing it.

Vignette: A scene, or situation involving characters, used to help to explain the various facets of a dilemma or other conflict.

Visual Sociology: A special branch of sociology concerned with the intersection of sociological studies with visual arts and visual elements of everyday life.

Bibliography

Aguirre-Arredondo, L., & Carrizo-Moreno, D. (2017). Information quality and quantity-based model to represent the appropriateness of software requirements elicitation techniques. Revista Facultad De Ingenieria Universidad De Antioquia, (84), 72–83.

Barton, K. C. (2015). Elicitation techniques: Getting people to talk about ideas they don't usually talk about. Theory and Research in Social Education, 43(2), 179–205.

Carrizo, D., Dieste, O., & Juristo, N. (2014). Systematizing requirements elicitation technique selection. Information & Software Technology, 56(6), 644–-669.

Carrizo, D., Dieste, O., & Juristo, N. (2017). Contextual attributes impacting the effectiveness of requirements elicitation techniques: Mapping theoretical and empirical research. Information & Software Technology, 92, 194–221.

Carrizo, D., Ortiz, C., & Aguirre, L. (2016). What do researchers mean by "the right requirements elicitation techniques"? INGENIARE—Revista Chilena De Ingeniería, 24(2), 263–273.

Kapantzoglou, M., Fergadiotis, G., & Restrepo, M. A. (2017). Language sample analysis and elicitation technique effects in bilingual children with and without language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 60(10), 2852–-2864.

Kokko, S., & Lagerkvist, C. J. (2017). Using Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique to map beneficiaries' experiences and values: A case example from the sanitation sector. American Journal of Evaluation, 38(2), 205–225.

Setiawan, A. W. (2016). Computer-based image elicitation technique for exploring students' implicit concepts of an ideal English teacher. Qualitative Research Journal (Emerald Group Publishing Limited), 16(2), 138–148. Retrieved January 1, 2018 from EBSCO Online Database Sociology Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sxi&AN=114260418&site=ehost-live

Vásquez-Bravo, D., Sánchez-Segura, M., Medina-Domínguez, F., & Amescua, A. (2014). Knowledge management acquisition improvement by using software engineering elicitation techniques. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 721–730.

Zupan, B., & Babbage, D. R. (2017). Film clips and narrative text as subjective emotion elicitation techniques. The Journal Of Social Psychology, 157(2), 194–210. Retrieved January 1, 2018 from EBSCO Online Database Sociology Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sxi&AN=121550152&site=ehost-live

Elicitation Techniques

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Subject Terms

Elicitation Techniques

Abstract

Overview

Further Insights

Issues

Terms & Concepts

Bibliography

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