The use of interviews as a means for gathering data in hopes of gaining insight into issues of interest (e.g. conceptual understanding, relevant contexts, personal epistemologies, etc.) is widely utilized within engineering education research. Such research delve into what engineering experts and novices say in hopes interpreting meanings, intention, and understanding. This research paper approaches the interview from a different perspective. Instead of examining what is being said, this research delves into how interview participants speak and relay information within the context of an interview. Drawing from a specific perspective in discourse analysis (i.e. conversation analysis), this study provides analysis and interpretation regarding engineers' recollection of experiences during 'interview talk' in relation to sequential and preference/"dispreference" organization. Using detailed transcripts and audio recordings of clinical, semi-structured interviews with engineering practitioners and academic instructors, the ways in which recollections of experience functioned within the structure of talk-in-interaction is examined in detail. Three patterns of sequence organization were displayed in the analyzed transcripts: adjacency pair with sequence closing thirds, adjacency pair with post-completion musings, and adjacency pairs with non-minimal post expansions. Further, the location of recollection of experiences within these patterns of sequence organization appeared to be related to whether the engineers attempted to mitigate their responses, delay giving an answer, or perform other actions that indicate preference or "dispreference" (as noted by CA researchers like Schegloff and Sacks) through the ongoing conversation with an interviewer. These findings note a common structure of talk that occurs within a commonly encountered context in engineering education research. By providing insight into the structure of talk-in-interaction, this study provides a means for analyzing interview data from a theoretical and methodological perspective emerging within engineering education research. Further, the findings from this study provide awareness of another level of interpretation regarding interview data beyond what is being said into understanding how interaction occurs between two individuals participating in clinical, semi-structured interviews.
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