Cultural Inquiry Report: Affordances and Constraints to Generative AI for an Interview Activity

Shakil Rabbi
Virginia Tech University

This assignment asks undergraduate students to use Generative AI tools for an interview activity. Generative AI tools are used prior to the interview to generate questions and help students practice interviews, and post-interview to generate transcriptions of the interviews and clean the transcriptions. Students are also encouraged to make use of Generative AI in critical ways to analyze the interview transcript, with a focus on information. Generative AI cannot adequately identify without extensive contextualization (e.g. cultural frames and conversational pauses).

Learning Goals

  • Engage with elements in the research process that can be automated with Generative AI
  • Identify limitations of Generative AI in for analyzing significant units of meaning in language use
  • Reflect on the affordances and constraints of Generative AI as a qualitative research tool

Original Assignment Context: Research Writing Assignment, First Year Research and Writing Course

Materials Needed

  • Zoom or Otter.AI for Interview Transcription 
  • Text generators such as OpenAI or Claude
  • Cultural Dimensions Assessment (IDR Assessment) based on Geert Hofstede  

Time Frame: ~4 weeks 

Overview: This assignment was used twice in two undergraduate writing and research courses. The Cultural Inquiry Report is usually the first major assignment for the course and it aims to help students develop some initial intercultural competence and some basic awareness of Generative AI as a tool for learning. 

Assignment

Cultural Inquiry Report: In this project you will interview someone from another cultural background and compose a cultural inquiry report comparing and contrasting cultural distinctions. Think of the report as an essay—composed and supported with the evidence from the interview as a form of primary research—responding to the reading and the notion of “Culture as Iceberg” and the Cultural Dimensions Assessment Report. The aim is to use the interview to better understand how “obvious and outward signs of a culture lies atop deeper cultural aspects such as values and beliefs.”

This report asks you to conduct a research interview to analyze some of the deeper cultural aspects of another culture and motivations. You should compare your own perspectives on cultural values with someone from another culture so that you can start to identify nuances of intercultural distinctions.

You should conduct this activity with a sense of rhetorical performance and research process. The activity will also ask you to make use of Generative AI tools to facilitate your data gathering and analysis processes, with a focus on developing critical competence of this tool. You should also reflect on the process to help you identify a topic that you want to pursue over the course and a sense of intercultural competence.

Getting Started 

Review some of the lessons on interviewing people and research methods in this class, from presentations to discussion posts and assigned readings. Think about what topics you are interested in learning about based on the IDR lab result and what assumptions you might have about other cultures that you want to check. You should make use of a Generative AI to better understand how to conduct research interviews and the IDR assessment. Consequently, create a set of 5 or more questions for your partner and interview them (you will have support developing these questions in class as a group and using Generative AI). 

The interviews should have a focus and should run about approximately 30 mins. As you compose your report, refer to the following questions to help you draft:

  • Who is your partner? What is their background (regional, cultural, linguistic)? What are their interests both inside and outside of school?
  • What are assumptions associated with the cultural group of your partner? How well do these assumptions stand up in light of the interview?
  • What are some cultural differences associated with gender, education, or language between your background and your partner’s? What are some commonalities between the two backgrounds?
  • What are some topics raised in the interview that you wanted to know more about and how might you think about a way to research these topics further?

Process and Timeline

You should start with completing your own cultural group assessment (i.e. the IDR Assessment). Once you have your assessment, use that as the basis for finding someone who represents a different culture and schedule an interview. 

Week 1: Read Assignment Sheet and brainstorm ideas for focus of interview. 

Week 2: Create a set of questions; practice interviews with Generative AI. 

Week 3: Conduct an interview and use Gen AI to produce a clean transcript of the interview

Week 4: Compose an analysis of cultural differences based on the interview. Compose a reflection memo laying takeaways from the process for cultural differences, interviews as a research activity, and the affordances and constraints of Generative AI. 

Note: To transcribe your interviews effectively, you can do one of the following:

  1. Conduct the interview over Zoom. Record it with transcription/captions on. The file will download a video and file of captions. Using either Gen AI or directly reading through it and clean it up a little and you will have your transcript. (https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115004794983-Audio-transcription-for-cloud-recordings)
  2. Conduct an interview and then upload into a transcription software. Many of them provide free machine transcription of files up to 30 mins. To use this option, audiorecord your interview using a phone, laptop, or other device, upload the file and then download the transcriptions. (https://myelearningworld.com/best-transcription-software/)

Formatting

In writing your Cultural Inquiry Report, please note the following:

  • Compose your Cultural Inquiry Report in at least 1200 words.
  • Give your report a creative and fitting title; use the title to entice the reader about what is to come!
  • Follow MLA or APA  guidelines for the design, layout, and construction of your paper.
  • Use purposeful punctuation, grammar, and syntax to enhance your report.
  • Include a reflection memo that discusses your takeaways from the process. 

Prompts for Generative AI Activities:

1. For Practicing Interviews:  

You are a multilingual speaker being interviewed about your literacy experiences, cultural background, and identity development. I am preparing to conduct interviews like this for a research or teaching project, and I want to practice asking natural, open-ended questions and responding empathetically.

Please follow these instructions:

  • You will play a realistic participant, drawing on common experiences of multicultural speakers, such as:
    • Growing up across different cultures 
    • Struggling with cultural identity or feelings of belonging
    • Facing stereotypes, code-switching, or language-based teasing
    • Navigating values across cultures or communities
  • Respond to my questions in a casual, authentic tone, using detailed examples and emotional reflection.
  • You may also express uncertainty, shift topics slightly, or ask for clarification—just like a real person might.
  • Do not generate questions. Wait for me to ask and respond from your lived experience.

I will begin the conversation now as the Interviewer. Please stay in character throughout the session.

2. For Cleaning Interview Transcriptions:

You are a professional transcription editor. Clean and format the following transcript of a recorded conversation between two speakers. I want you to provide me a format that is easier to read and compiles speech based on speakers. 

Please follow these instructions:

  • Identify and group all speech by the same speaker together. Do not alternate mechanically. Instead, use changes in topic, questions, or tone to infer when the speaker changes.
  • Assign labels: use Interviewer: and Participant: consistently for each speaker.
  • Correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling without changing meaning.
  • Remove filler words (e.g., “um,” “uh,” “like,” “you know”) unless they add meaningful tone.
  • Eliminate false starts, stutters, and repeated words that do not contribute to the speaker’s point.
  • Clarify unclear phrasing if needed, but do not paraphrase or add new ideas.
  • Preserve the tone, voice, and natural flow of the conversation.
  • Begin a new paragraph for each speaker turn and make it clean and readable for a .txt file.

Do not summarize, rewrite, or analyze the conversation. Your task is to produce a cleaned and clearly formatted transcript that is as true as possible to the original conversation.