Interviews

• What types of interviews are there?

  • Structured
  • Unstructured
  • Semi structured
  • Focus/group
• Structured interview

  • contains a pre set list of questions that are ordered in a structured way
  • Contains closed ended questions - designed to produce short answers only with no explanation
  • The same order of questions are read out to the same participants
• Unstructured interview

  • A list of questions that produce open ended questions that allow the participant to probe
  • gains insight and depth with the explanation and feelings that come with it
• Semi-structured Interview

  • A list of open and closed questions which allow the participants to probe their answers
  • This can allow some depth and insight within their answers
• Interpretivist Theorist

  Ann Oakley - interviewed 55 women using unstructured interviews. She interviewed them 2 times before giving birth to their children and 2 times after they gave birth. She asked them questions about their experience in motherhood for the 1st time, expectations put on them and how their relationships have changed.

  Findings: 70% of women still do most of the housework and they came out with being 'dissatisfied'
• Positivist Theorist

  Young and Willmott - Used structured interviews to research extended families. Used 933 people in a structured manner.

  Findings: That the roles within the extended families had become more symmetrical and the opposite of what Ann Oakley found.
• Crime survey for England and Wales

  Around 60,000 structured interviews are completed each year. Researchers go to peoples homes and ask them questions to see if they have been a victim of a crime in the last 12 months.
• What are focus groups?

  Focus group research involves group of individuals to gain information about their views of a topic. Focus group interviewing is for obtaining several perspectives about the same topic.
• Advantages for Focus groups

  Collecting rich and detailed data

  • The interaction of the group may encourage people who are reluctant to speak
  • Participants may be inspired and encouraged by the group to
• Disadvantages for focus groups

  • Difficult to record data as there is a big volume of people speaking
  • Multiple people or the most powerful in the group might dominate, excluding others
  • Participants might not give their actual opinion, but say something that would make the group like them (Social desirability bias)