Strengths

• 1. Practical – Time and Cost

  ● Structured interviews are a fairly inexpensive research method relative to the amount of data

  that is collected, because there is little training required for the interviewers, as all they are required to do is follow a set of instructions. This means many researchers can carry out the interviews at the same time, covering large numbers of people with limited resources. However, this is more costly than simply posting or emailing questionnaires to people.
• Practical Time and Cost (2)

  Townsend used structured interviews in his study of ‘Poverty in the United Kingdom’, and by using trained interviewers the level of poverty experienced by 6000 individuals was able to be measured.
• Practical time cost (3)

  Structured interviews tend to use closed questions which do not take long to complete. This means larger numbers of structured interviews can be carried out in a smaller amount of time. Also, as the questions used by structured interviews tend to be pre-coded and close-ended; the data can be processed quickly by computer to reveal the relationships between different variables. Like questionnaires, this makes them suitable for hypothesis testing.
• Ethical – Informed consent

  ● Because structured interviews are carried out face-to-face, the researcher is able to fully explain the

  purpose of the research and the potential participants are able to ask any questions they may have about it, ensuring they are fully informed before they give their consent to take part. This means structured interviews can be regarded as an ethical form of research.
• Theoretical - reliable method of data collection

  seen as reliable because it is easy for the researcher to standardise and control them. They can ensure that each interview is conducted in precisely the same way, with the same questions, in the same order, with the same wording and tone of voice. If another researcher were to repeat the study, they should get very similar results.
• Theoretical reliable (2)

  structured interview provides a 'recipe' for repeating the research:

  ● For example, in Willmott and Young’s study of family and kinship in East London, the interviews were

  formal and standardised with precise questions, so they could be asked in the same way each time-

  making them reliable.

  ●because they are reliable, means comparisons can be made between different social groups, as well as over time, from place to place allowing researchers to see the ‘big picture’ of society (macro).
• Theoretical - representative sample/ response rate

  • The large numbers who can be surveyed using structured interviews increase the chances of obtaining a representative sample of the population. Although the numbers that can be studied are lower than for questionnaires.
• Theoretical - representative and response rate (2)

  • Representativeness is increased by the fact that structured interviews generally have a higher response rate, because structured interviews ask people to participate face-to-face and they complete them there and then. This means out of those selected to participate a relatively high percentage will be completed and returned, meaning they provide a better basis for making generalisations.
• Young and Wilmott - east London extended families

  ‘size of the sample - 933 people – meant we could not do the interviewing ourselves; these interviews were carried out by other interviewers we employed for the purpose interviews were formal, questions precise and factual, with limited range of alternative answers, on straightforward topics ( people's age, job, religion, birthplace, etc ). Each interview took between about ten minutes to half an hour.’