Barriball, K. Louise, and Alison While. "Collecting data using a semi-structured interview:a discussion paper." Journal of Advanced Nursing. 19. (1994): 328-335. Print.

This article discusses the steps made by a research team to increase validity and reliability within a large research project focused on continuing education for nurses in two health authorities.  The paper's intent is to highlight advantages, disadvantages, and specific pitfalls created when doing semi-structured interviews.  The authors concluded that despite difficulties the interview provided some real benefits including increased interest from the nurses and the best method for examining perceptions among a large and diverse population.

While this article doesn't present the research findings of the study it does grow out of an actual study using the techniques I am using, semi-structured interviews.  The authors, both highly educated nursing educators and researchers, were extremely thorough in their treatment of validity and reliability issues.  Medicine as a science is largely used to methods that are more quantitative while education lends itself to more qualitative examinations.  This study's research question and method straddles both fields.  By carefully addressing all of the possible problems in this separate paper the authors strengthen the results of their study.  Some studies I have read addressed reliability and validity, while others ignored it.  I have never seen it discussed as free standing supporting document.  The point by point considerations found here are useful for anyone conducting interviews in design considerations, conduct the interview and in offering a defense of their findings.

After briefly introducing their study the authors move directly to a discussion a problem affecting reliability recognized during the conception of the study, non-response.  If left unaddressed the studied will be skewed by a selective group of respondents that isn't representative of the actual population.  To address non-response and other problems with surveys the researchers, during the design phase, chose semi-structured interviews as a method to help with the following issues:

1. Overcome poor response rates of surveys.
2. Well suited to the exploration of attitudes, values, beliefs and motives.
3. Provides opportunity to evaluate validity of the respondent's answers by observing non-verbal indicators.
4. Facilitates comparability by ensuring that all questions are answered by each respondent.
5. Ensures that the respondent is unable to receive assistance while formulating a response.(329)

The researchers found "face to face contact with each potential respondent had three important outcomes;"(330) increased interest in the project, ability to reconsider by hesitant participants, and collection of information from non-participants.  The semi-structured interview, with standardized questions, advantaged the research by overcoming language barriers, clarifying tacit assumptions, providing the interview with latitude in probing responses, and increasing interactivity between interview and participants.  The authors also addressed ethical concerns revolving around the use respondents time and the need to include their input when creating an interview framework. Of special interest to me was a discussion of training of interviewers.  Because this was a large research project their was a need to use a team of interviewers.  To increase validity the research team instituted a very rigorous training regiment including reading of applicable texts about nurse continuing education, focused discussions on each question and dry runs.  They also instituted ongoing "maintenance"(334) of interviewer's skills.  The research team's treatment of the interview process was very complete and an inspiration for me on how to secure the best results.  I will adopt some of their strategies including time management, and a practice routine for myself before giving my first interview.

Thoennes, Donna. "Keeping it Real:Research Findings on Authentic Community." Christian Education Journal. 5.1 (2008): 76-87. Print.

This is a research paper where the author conducted structural interviews with 30 students in Christian colleges to discover their views and experiences of community since the began attending the schools.  After analyzing the results she focuses on "authenticity," both of students and of the leadership, as a main theme of the study.  She elaborates on the theme and finds many implications for those in Christian education and ministry.

Addressing credibility in this type of paper author clearly states the outlook and audience for this study as being distinctly Christian and for Christian educators and ministers.  Author establishes a "senses of community" as a common goal of administrators, students and faculty of Christian colleges.  There are common goals and assumptions made by the audience and the writer of this paper.  The assumptions include Biblical mandates, education as ministry, and that researchers, beyond discovery and analysis, are empowered to draw implications and make suggestions readers.  This type approach is starkly different than what we read in standard academic journals.  At first it seems in appropriately congenial, but after accepting the limitations built into the study's clearly defined assumptions, context, perspective and audience it seems acceptable and rhetorically honest.

I chose this study not for content but for the research method, semi-structured interviews.  The data gathered from this method was presented in two ways, one clumsy and superfluous and one deftly handled.  I learned from this.  The author gives sets the stage with a discussion of community and some demographic descriptions of the student population at the colleges studied.  An approximation to our IRB system is achieved by obtaining permission from the administration and faculty. The author then introduces four well developed research questions?  Three are drawn directly from the student responses to questions, dealing with their experiences, and two dealing with conceptions of ideal and Christian communities.  The fourth question is analytical, evaluating the student responses for similarity and from perspectives "...postmodern, theological and historical."(79)   The author included an adequate description of the interview, data-recording, and transcription process.  However, the 20 questions that were asked were not included in the article.  The evaluation of the interviews seemed confused.  First an elaborate coding system was imposed on the 30 transcripts creating using a program named Non-numeric Unstructured Data-Indexing Searching and Theorizing 4(NUD*IST 4).  The author explains the coding process and the categories for themes and  internal relationships within the data but then seems ignore the coding structure for the rest of the paper.  For example there is no discussion of numbers of student response falling into categories.  My assumption is once the data was coded and the software produced a graphical display showing "...a network of related themes,"  the author didn't know what to do with it.  Instead she used the broad categories that she programmed into as a structure for writing the paper.  According to the way she used the data she could have skipped the use of the software.  Once the author began to handle the information gathered from the interviews she effectively used the students quotes within seven themes or categories to demonstrate what was learned.  Of note, I found a unique handling of the implications section of the article.  The author devoted almost a third of the paper to the readers of the study, educators in Christian colleges and those involved with student ministries.  In this section she gives nine areas where students needs can be addressed by educators and ministers.  This is done in overtly didactic manner including the use of scriptures to contextualize her suggestions.  This technique may be common within Christian education journals.

King, Peter, and Nathan Ballantyne. "Augustine on Testimony." Canadian Journal of Philosphy. 39.2 (2009): 195-214. Print.

King and Ballantyne examine St. Augustine's writings to discover his views on testimony as a source of knowledge.  They find an evolving view of testimony and knowledge as Augustine matures and as his philosophical progress "...from Academic Skepticism to Platonism and thence to Christianity."(199)  They look at Augustine's beliefs through three philosophical questions; analytic, epistemological, and doxastic.  They also situate Augustine's views on testimony within the greater philosophical discussion of testimony, specifically the work of two Scottish contemporaries, David Hume and Thomas Reid.

The authors present Augustine's views on testimony by weaving Augustine's writings, historical situation, formal representation, and sufficient explanation into a well written and accessible paper.  Augustine's beliefs are looked at from:

"...the analytical question of what sources count as testimony; the epistemological question about the status of testimony-based belief; and the doxastic question about the circumstances in which it is appropriate to believe on the basis of testimony ."(195-196)

Analytically Augustine's defines testimony sources such as reports of foreign place, testifiers biography, events, etc. communicated by means that are spoken or written or other (i.e. hand symbols), where the hearer is unable to confirm, because it is at distance or past or within the mind of the testifier.  It is not necessary for the testifier to be either an eyewitness of the event or and expert witness offering analysis and opinion.  The epistemological question, or value as a source of knowledge, is the main concern of both Augustine and of the authors.  The question is explained and Augustine's views are demonstrated using detailed descriptions and tools, but the bottom line is the veracity is formed in the mind of the hearer.  Testimony becomes like any other premise it is up to the hearer to transform it to knowledge through belief.  Finally, they discuss in the most technical terms of the paper the doxastic logical considerations.  This is a complicated analysis of the believer's role in forming belief.  The authors encapsulate Augustine's view, "a hearer should believe a testifier’s report unless it seems to the hearer either that the testifier or the report is untrustworthy."(212)  These explanations are all well supported within the article.  The authors wrap up their analysis by considering Hume, whose work is also discussed in my project, and Reid's views of testimony and by reframing their thought with the 1400 year prior work of Augustine's.  This article is extremely helpful for my project because they equip me, with greater precision, to establish a rhetorical value for testimonies; to situate testimony within Christian beliefs; to present testimony within the Christian traditions of education, theology and apologetics; and to explain testimony within a broader philosophical discussion.

Kennedy, George. Classical Rhetoric. 2nd. ed. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999. 137. Print.

Kennedy's book is a historical overview of rhetoric beginning in ancient Greece and tracing its development through Greek and Roman tradition, through the middle ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment all the way through to the twentieth century.  He tells the story by examining people, schools and theory.  Who was important?  What did they teach?  What were the reactions?  Beginning with Homeric Poetry, examples of this rhetorical analytical treatment include, Technical, Sophistic and Philosophical, Roman, Judeo-Christian, Humanist, Neo-Classical, American, Post Modern and more; people include Plato, Cicero, St. Augustine, Erasmus, Descartes, Kant, Marx, and Kenneth Burke. Covering over three millennia, Kennedy weaves these complex, technical ideas and divergent thinkers together in a very accessible and easy way.

Kennedy's treatment of the particulars of Judeo-Christian rhetorical themes and distinctions are particularly useful for my project.  In two directions, forward and back, he traces Christianity's unique placement at the crossroads of very distinct and internally influential rhetorical forces, the Old Testament and the Hellenistic age in which the Church was born.  A good example is Kennedy's treatment of persuasion as a goal.  He points outs that the Biblical tradition, Jewish and Christian, makes no real effort to persuade.  At least, not in a way a Greek would recognize or value.  Looking back at the story of Moses and his confrontation of Pharaoh, Kennedy writes, "Persuasion takes place when God is ready, and not through the verbal activities or even authority of Moses."(140)  Jews and Christians proclaim God, His existence, and His imminent judgment and action.  "Authority" takes the place of ethos for the Christian orator who proclaims not persuades; "Scriptural truth must be apprehended by the listener, not proved by the speaker."(146)  The use of "authority" is predominate in both Old and New Testament, but in the New Greek ideas about rhetoric are also present.  For example, St. Augustine enjoins the Christian teacher to use whatever rhetorical means he or she finds helpful for communicating Truth.  Kennedy's clear explanation of these differences are helpful in understanding the use of testimony in the life of the Christian, there rhetorical roles and limitations.

Augustine, Saint. On Christian Doctrine. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1999. 122. Print.

De Doctrina Christiana is one of Augustine's most important works, especially for students and scholars interested in theology, Biblical studies, preaching, teaching and rhetoric.  It is a collection of four books.  The first three were written A.D. 397 and he added the fourth in 426.  The first three books deal with discovering the meaning of scriptures the last with expressing that meaning.  The first book is expositional dealing with the true meaning of scripture.  The second book is about signs (especially words) and the difficulty "unknown and ambiguous" signs cause to those studying the Bible; dealing primarily with "unknown" signs.  The third book concentrates on "ambiguous" signs where the meaning can be unclear and open to interpretation.  The fourth book, written thirty years later, deals with Christian teaching and the need for "eloquence" and "wisdom" on behalf of the teacher tasked with bringing the scriptures to the Church.  This book is primer that sets forth a framework for Christian teachers, preachers, educators and scholars to approach the Bible.

I would place St. Augustine as the third most influential Christian theologian and teacher, behind St. Paul and, of course, Jesus Christ because of the high esteem with which he is held in all three major streams of Christianity; Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism.  Augustine was born a Roman Citizen in A.D. 354 and studied rhetoric until experiencing a radical conversion to Christianity (he writes about this in book 8 of his Confessions) after which he became a priest and then the Bishop of Hippo.  His writings include: The City of God, Confessions, On Christian Doctrine and Enchiridion.  Beyond Theology, he influenced thought in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Anthropology, Education and Political Science.  A good example is the debate surrounding the two Iraqi wars and the Afghan wars.  Much was made of "just war theory" an idea loosely tied to Cicero but morally established by Augustine's writings.

This book is useful in in establishing and applying a distinctly Christian Rhetoric.  Augustine is particularly relevant in legitimizing all rhetorical devises in the advancement of truth, "Now, the art of rhetoric being available for the enforcing either of truth or falsehood, who will dare to say that truth in the person of its defenders is to stand unarmed against falsehood."  Within my project on testimonies it is important to evaluate them both by design, invention and situation and audience.  Augustine clears the way for consideration from a classical rhetorical perspective as well as a uniquely Christian rhetoric dealing with authority, and grace over persuasion.