Developing a recipe for realist interviewing using critical realist ingredients

This chapter offers a critical realist-informed perspective on the design of interviews in applied social science research including realist evaluation. It starts by profiling the key differences between the philosophies of critical realism and scientific realism (the basis of Pawson and Tilley's realist evaluation). After providing a rationale for a critical realist approach to social science research and interview method development, the chapter introduces five critical realist ‘ingredients’ to inspire the development of realist interviewing. It provides practical guidance on developing interview questions that will generate the rich ontological ‘deep’ data that will enable us to answer our realist-inspired research and evaluation questions.