interviews

• interviews ask questions in a more naturally verbal face to face situation, so can be more detailed and personal

  • can be both open and close ended questions, but more use of open questions
  • can be structured or unstructured
• in a structured interview the interviewer has predetermined questions

  • each interviewee is asked the same set of predetermined questions and the interviewer doesn't deviate from these
• in an unstructured interview, the interviewer has a topic to explore with a few pre-determined question.

  • it is more flexible and allows for more questions to develop
• interviews need to be designed to avoid social desirability, bias and low response rate

  • record the interview
  • effect of the interviewer
  • questioning skills
  • ethical issues
• advantages of interviews-

  • more detailed compared to questionnaires- more valid, meaningful and insightful
  • allows the opportunity for clarification unlike questionnaires- more reliable
• disadvantages of interviews-

  • problems with investigator effects as the ppts might catch onto the expectations of the interviewer- can be unreliable
  • interviews are more time consuming - impractical