A Reflection Upon Interpretive Research Techniques: The Problem-Centred Interview as a Method for Biographic Research

While the method of the problem-centred interview or PCI has been widely used by social researchers writing in German, a large part of the international scientific community is not yet acquainted with this strategy of data collection and analysis. The most significant contribution of the PCI to qualitative research methods is its coherent combination of different interviewing styles within one interview session: an open narrative at the beginning is followed by a thematic interview and the collection of socio-statistical information at the end. This paper gives an overview of the theoretical foundation and the different stages of the PCI by introducing an example of how it is carried out within a research project on biographical orientations in migration processes. Finally, the PCI is compared with other types of biographical data analysis, discussing both its advantages (such as linking the analysis to the development of qualitative typology building) and disadvantages (eg. high demands on the interviewed person) and giving an overview of the scope and limits of this interpretive method