Structured Interviews

• What is a structured interview?

  An interviewer asks a set list of questions to all participants.
• What are some of the practical positives of structured interviews?

  • Training interviewees are straightforward and inexpensive
  • Can cover relatively large numbers of people
  • Good to collect factual information
  • Easy to quantify, suitable for testing hypothesis
• What are some of the practical negatives of structured interviews?


  • More costly than questionnaires
  • Don't collect as large a set of results as questionnaires
• Response rate


  • Large numbers of respondents used by this method increase the chance of a representative sample
  • Although the sample size may be smaller than that of questionnaires the response rate is higher. (E.g. Willmott and Young approached a sample of 987 people and only 54 refused to take part).
  • Call backs can increase the response rate, although this can increase the cost.
• Reliability


  Structured interviews are reliable as a research method, as they can be repeated with similar results
• Validity


  • Structured interviews usually use close ended questions that restrict responses. This limits validity.
  • The give interviewers very little freedom to clarify misunderstandings
  • People may lie or exaggerate answers
• Structured interviews are also very inflexible. This is because the researcher has already decided on what's important, which may not link to the participants views.

  Questions can't be changed to explore interesting leads which may limit the depth of the research.
• Feminist criticisms:

  • Graham- survey methods are patriarchal and give a distorted view of women's experiences.
  • The male interviewer decides the line of questioning, which mirrors women's subordination in society
  • They impose male meanings on women, making it difficult for women to express their experiences and concealing unequal power relationships.