- Do not ask yes/no questions, instead use phrases like "how" and "why", and if a factual answer is required, "what"
- Do not contradict or correct a participant while they're still talking on a subject
- Whether or not a participant's answers are correct, keep encouraging them to talk as they keep saying new things
- Any surprising responses should be investigated further. It is ok to stop following a tangential line of investigation once the participant starts repeating themselves, or has deviated such that their responses are no longer pertinent to the research questions.
- A rule of thumb for interviews is 90% should be you listening.
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Start with an open-ended “how did it go?” Investigate further based on their statements
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Ask them to order the seen comprehension tasks by order of complexity
If it did not come up yet:
- Why are these the most complex code?
- Why are these the easy code snippets?
- Discuss code content
For example, the snippets contained loops, if-else structures, and recursion: How did you perceive their difference?
- If response does not align with their ordering, ask why that might be the case.
- If the participant appears to be thinking and not speaking, encourage them to comment on their thought process.
- If the participant says something unclear, ask them to please repeat themselves.
- If the participant says something ambiguous, ask them to please describe what was just said in a different way.