Discover How to Interview People for a School Project

Interviewing knowledgeable individuals is a great way to enhance your science project. Many people in your community or even outside it have considerable science education in the realm you are investigating, and their input might not only help you determine the direction of your project but may also point you toward valuable results. Here are a few tips on how to interview people for a school project, to give you the best possible results.

• Remember that virtually everyone has a busy schedule. Notifying a person in advance and scheduling a time for the interview several days or weeks from now will always be better received than insisting on an interview extremely soon. Send the person whom you wish to interview an e-mail and ask when he or she will be available - also listing the times when you will be free. The person to be interviewed will appreciate the courtesy.
• Another important tip on how to interview people for a school project is to be prepared. Know what you want out of the interview and develop your questions in advance. Don't come in and expect to suddenly know what to ask on the spot. If you have the structure of the interview planned in advance, you will appear more professional, and you will be able to achieve your goals much faster and more effectively.
• If you cannot meet with the interviewee in person, you can still submit a series of questions by e-mail and request that the interviewee try to look at them in his or her spare time. Make sure you state explicitly that you do not insist that he or she does this, but would rather appreciate it if he or she took the time. If you do not hold the interviewee to any obligations, he or she will be more likely to respond in order to reciprocate the consideration you showed him or her.
• Another point to remember with regard to how to interview people for a school project is to make sure you record as much information as possible during the interview. Bring some kind of portable audio recorder with you if doing a live interview. At the least, bring a notepad and take down the main points of the responses to your interview questions. If you are doing an electronic questionnaire, you will conveniently have the transcript automatically.

These tips for how to interview people for a school project will enable you to conduct an informative, professional, and fun science interview. To learn more about how to conduct great science projects, explore these science fair success books.