Decoding interview

Three educators conducting a Decoding Interview

The Decoding Interview is the second step within the seven steps of Decoding the Disciplines. The purpose of this step is to uncover the mental operations students must master to get past the Bottleneck. Since many of these operations are so automatic to instructors that they have become invisible, a systematic process of deconstructing disciplinary practice is necessary. The most powerful method for becoming clear about the steps that students must master to overcome specific bottlenecks is an interview process in which two interviewers work with instructors to explore how they themselves accomplish the task with which many students have trouble . By interviewing the lecturer as an expert in the field (s)he teaches those mental operations of the expert are revealed.

Generally speaking, a Decoding Interview assumes the following pattern:

1. Define and describe the bottleneck in question.
2. Articulate the mental operations required to overcome the bottleneck. This step requires that the person conducting the interview probe the subject expert being interviewed in order to push them to clearly outline the operational steps taken to move past the bottleneck. The point of this step is to make the implicit explicit.
3. Summarize and reflect on the outlined operations to ensure the steps have been adequately captured. This step may also identify other bottlenecks that need to be addressed in order for a learner to be able to be able to work through the bottleneck being addressed in the interview.

The interview should follow an conversational, exploratory format. An example of a Decoding Interview can be found by clicking on this link.

Detailed descriptions of the process may be found in these resources:

• David Pace, The Decoding the Disciplines Paradigm (pp.39-47, 123-125)
• Joan Middendorf and Leah Shopkow, Overcoming Student Learning Bottlenecks (pp.48-59)
• Peter Riegler, “The Decoding interview – an exemplary insight”. in Decoding the Disciplines ​

Outcomes of the interview

The outcome of the Decoding interview should be a phrase that summarizes the mental moves of the interviewed expert.

How to do interviews

Interview Participants

A Decoding Interview is usually comprised of three participants:

• The lecturer who is trying to decode their bottleneck
• An interviewer who engages the educator in questions
• A second interviewer to support the process

When selected potential interview partners, the lecturer should consider the knowledge level of the interviewers. If the interviewers are too familiar with the bottleneck and its related discipline, there is the possibility that their shared knowledge will impede them from interrogated the lecturer in a way that challenges them to break down the topic at hand. Likewise, if the interviewers have too little subject knowledge the lecturer may have to spend too much time ensuring they have enough background knowledge to approach the bottleneck. Ideally, the interviews' knowledge of the bottleneck should approximate the level of the students whom the lecturer usually encounters when teaching the bottleneck. Other configurations may be appropriate for specifics topics and circumstances.

Interview process

Decoding Interviews begin by having the primary educator name the bottleneck being explored and describing a situation in which got stuck in the bottleneck.

Resources

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