For my primary research interview for food insecurity at San Diego State University, I plan to interview a student at the school who has encountered and struggled with the issue of food insecurity. I believe that this is the best person to interview for this problem because they can give us a powerful insight into the world of students struggling to get enough healthy food everyday. It can show us why this is such a serious and problematic issue, and how it is something that needs to be taken into consideration by the higher institutions of the country. It captures the emotional side of the fight against food insecurity, rather than the statistics and numbers of the issue. This will provide insight into the issue at hand that secondary sources cannot provide, as it gives the issue an emotional perspective that you can only experience from actually feeling the weight of the issue.

Image via University of North Carolina – Wilmington

The interview will take place in a quieter, more private place. This will allow the interviewee to be open and honest with the interviewer, and not have to worry about their personal information being broadcasted for the public to listen in on. The best case scenario would be meeting up in-person, as that kind of connection is more powerful compared to a zoom interview. To keep track of what we talked about, and to help me write the assignment later, I will be recording the interview as long as I get permission from the student. This will allow me to double back on the interview later, and help me remember certain details that the interviewee mentioned, that I may have missed the first time.

In order to explain the interview to my person, at the beginning of the interview, I will explain to them why we are doing this interview. This will help set them up best to answer the questions, and hopefully not catch him off guard. This will allow the interviewee to provide the best possible answer for each question, and give us the best insight possible into the glaring issue of food insecurity.

Image via ITI Technical College

I want to design my interview questions to be open-ended. I want to give the person being interviewed the opportunity to truly provide a great answer to each question, which will help us get an insight into how this issue affects people physically, mentally, and emotionally. First, I will ask the person being interviewed “How would you describe your experience navigating food at San Diego State University?”. This will provide us with how students that have struggled with this issue have been living everyday life with it. It literally provides us with their perspective of the issue: something that doesn’t get shared to mainstream media often. A follow up question I can ask in response to this is “When did you realize that affording food at San Diego State University would be a challenge for you?”. This could tell us whether or not they started out fine, and slowly got worse off, or if they were screwed from the start. The second question I can ask is “How has food insecurity affected your academic performance or concentration in class?”. This is especially important for the institutions to pay attention to and recognize, as this story could show how to make their students more successful, and have a higher graduation rate. A follow up question I can ask is “Can you share a specific example of a time when this impact was noticeable?”. Third, I plan to ask “What strategies do you use to cope when food or money for food is limited?”, with the follow up question being “How effective do you feel these strategies are in the long term?”. Finally, I will ask the person being interviewed “How does dealing with food insecurity affect your overall well-being or stress levels?”, with the follow up question being ““What do you think colleges could better understand about students facing this issue?”

A problem I foresee with this interview is potentially pushing too hard for personal details from the student. It can be embarrassing and uncomfortable to talk about a serious topic such as food insecurity, and how it affects their day to day life. Another potential issue is prebaked biases, which could influence how I interpret their answers. I will consider these problems by making sure the interview is in a safe and comfortable environment for the person being interviewed, and ask neutral questions to avoid swaying them towards an answer.