MULTILEVEL SCHEDULE AND EVALUATION OF PAR TLY STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS -A DESIGN FOR AN ANALYSIS OF QUALITATIVE DATA OF A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY IN FAMILY DEVELOPMENTAL-PSYCHOLOGY

Nowadays many studies on family development are based on a longitudina l design using not only quantitative data from questionnaires but al s o qualitative interpretations from interviews of various kinds. Within the Dusseldorf Longitudinal Study ''From Lovers to Parents'' we condu cted two sequences of qualitative interviews which covered areas such as household work, residential situation, child-rearing attitudes, lei sure-time, social network, personality characteristics and spousal rel ations. The design of these interviewing situations with a tandem team and detailed hypotheses but free discourse (narrative interview) was the basis for a multi-level analysis using a new kind of coding system and a versatile systemic ecopsychological interpretation of the case studies. Here methodological problems are stressed.