Interviews

• What are interviews?

  Interviews are 'live' encounters where the interviewer asks a set of questions to assess the participant's thoughts and/or feelings.
• What are structured interviews?

  1. Questions are asked in a fixed order.
  2. Easy to replicate.
  3. Can be standardised.
  4. Can cause frustration for participants if they cannot elaborate on their points.
• What are unstructured interviews?

  1. No set questions.
  2. Ask questions in a free flowing way.
  3. The direction of the interview can change depending on participants answers.
  4. Participants are encouraged to elaborate.
  5. Difficult to compare to other answers.
  6. Difficult to replicate.
• What are semi-structured interviews?

  Questions are set beforehand but the interviewer can follow up on questions where appropraite.
• What is a strength of interviews?

  Participants are able to fully elaborate on their answers. This is a strength as it can make it easier to research complex topics and any misunderstandings can be clarified.
• What is a weakness of interviews?

  The researcher has to be present. This is a weakness as they are more time consuming.
• What is a weakness of interviews?

  Participants are one-on-one with the researcher (not anonymous). This is a weakness as answers given may be less truthful as they want to answer in ways that they believe would please the researcher or make them look good (social desirability/demand characteristics).