Topic 4 - Interviews

• Types of interview

  • Structured interviews
  • Unstructured interviews (including group interviews)
  • Semi-structured interviews
• Structured interviews

  The face-to-face or over-the-phone delivery of a questionnaire, using an interview schedule - a pre-set list of questions designed by the researcher and asked of all interviewees in the same way
• Unstructured interviews

  Ask mainly open-ended questions, with no fixed set of questions to be asked of every respondent, producing qualitative data because the interviewee can respond in words that are meaningful to them, guided as much by the interviewee as by the interviewer, informal and free-flowing, and more normal than a structured interview - more like guided conversation
• Semi-structured interviews

  Combining elements of both structured and unstructured interviews
• Positivists

  • Start from the assumption that there is a measurable objective social reality, take a scientific approach using standardised methods such as structured interviews to obtain quantitative data
• Positivists use structured interviews

  To obtain quantitative data, identify patterns and produce generalisations and cause-and-effect statements
• Interpretivists

  Seek to discover the meanings that underlie our actions and this means using open-ended research methods that produce valid, qualitative data, prefer unstructured interviews
• Structured interviews

  • Use fixed lists of closed-ended questions, so answers can be classified, counted and quantified
  • Produce easily quantifiable data
  • Reliable (easily replicated by other researchers)
  • Can produce fairly large-scale, representative data
• Interpretivists reject the use of structured interviews because they see them as lacking validity
• Advantages of structured interviews

  • Reliability
  • Representativeness
  • Cost-effectiveness
  • Higher response rate than mailed questionnaires
  • Limited 'interviewer effect'
• Disadvantages of structured interviews

  • Lack of validity
  • Reliability issues due to interviewer effect
  • Cost of employing and training interviewers
  • Unsuitability for sensitive issues
• Feminists argue that structured methods are patriarchal as the interviewer, not the female interviewee, is in control, making it difficult for women to express their experience of oppression
• Unstructured interviews

  • Build a stronger relationship between researcher and research subject
  • Give people the opportunity to talk openly, unrestricted by a fixed list of questions and possible responses
  • Likely to produce data that is high in validity
• Advantages of unstructured interviews

  • Informal, conversational nature helps build trust and rapport
  • Avoid imposing the sociologist's ideas onto the interview process
  • Flexibility allows following up on issues raised by the interviewee
  • Open-ended questioning allows detailed, in-depth responses
• Disadvantages of unstructured interviews

  • Validity may not be achieved as respondents may seek to please the researcher
  • Lack of reliability as responses cannot be easily classified and counted
  • Lack of representativeness due to smaller sample sizes
  • Unsuitability for sensitive issues
  • Higher cost of training interviewers and processing data
• Group interviews are usually largely unstructured and involve interviewing a group of people together, which can help jog memories and stimulate answers, but there is a danger that individuals will offer conformist answers rather than say what they really think
• Structured and unstructured interviewing techniques can be used in a complementary way in the form of semi-structured interviews to produce both quantitative and qualitative data