Elite interviewing as a research method: a worked example studying academic leadership in health professions...

Research in health professions education (HPE) frequently seeks insights from individuals who occupy senior positions of influence - leading scientists, clinicians, hospital executives, medical deans - whose decisions shape educational and institutional directions. Generating interview data with sufficient interpretive richness and depth in these settings can be challenging, and requires methodological approaches capable of moving beyond rehearsed organizational narratives to support nuanced, contextually situated accounts of decision-making, values and institutional processes. The HPE literature has limited practical, worked examples of how to conduct such interviews. Elite interviewing, a method widely used in political science and sociology, is a dialogic exchange designed to engage with influential individuals. In this paper, we examine elite interviewing as a methodological approach and, drawing on literature and a worked example of academic leadership in postgraduate medical education, we identify six interrelated elements: narrative framing, co-construction of knowledge, affective vulnerability, institutional critique, credibility building, and ethical reflexivity. While many of these elements will be familiar to researchers conducting high-quality interpretivist interviews, we argue they assume particular salience when interviewing senior academic leaders or other participants with institutional authority. Drawing on our worked example, we demonstrate how these elements shape the interview encounter and support depth, reflexivity and critical engagement during both the interview process and analysis. Our aim is to provide practical guidance for HPE researchers and demonstrate the potential of elite interviewing to enrich qualitative inquiry in contexts shaped by institutional authority, expertise and power.