In many classes, there may come a time where you need to interview someone. While this might be someone who’s a professional in their field, you may also get a chance to interview someone like a family member, especially someone older who may have a lot of experience with something that you’re learning in class.

As you prepare for an interview like this, here are three tips for interviewing a family member for a class project. 

Consider Doing The Interview In A Few Different Sittings

Once you’ve decided who you want to interview for your class project, you’ll need to communicate with them so that you can actually speak together.

While you might be able to get your interviewing done in one sitting with some people, you may want to split up your interview into a few different days for some family members. Especially if you’re going to be interviewing someone living in a senior living community, they may not have the strength or stamina to speak to you as much as you need in like one go of it. But if you’re able to interview them for short times over a few different days, this may prove to be more beneficial for everyone. 

Ask About Making A Recording

As you’re getting ready for your interview or interviews, something that you might want to consider is asking your interview subject if you can record your sessions when speaking to each other.

While you can and should take notes about what your family member says during your interviews, recording either with audio or video can often prove to be a better way to stay present in the conversation and then go back and use the answers to their questions for your class project later on. However, your family members might not be comfortable with this, so make sure you approve any recording with them before you do the actual recording. 

Come With Questions, But Be Flexible

To get the quotes, information, or sound bites that you’re wanting for your class project, you’ll need to make sure that you’re asking the right questions during your interview. Ideally, you should ask open-ended questions that will get your family member talking about what you’re asking them rather than just answering with a yes or no. 

As you’re having your conversation, keep in mind that you should allow yourself to be flexible with your questions based on things like how you think your family member is feeling, how they’ve answered previous questions, things like pique your interest, and more. 

If you have a class project where you need to interview a family member for the task, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you go about this successfully.