Limitations

• Practical - time and cost

  beung in depth unstructured interviews take a long time to conduct often several hours each. Limits the number than can be carried out and means researcher will have relatively small sample compared to larger sample that can be studyed via structured or questionnaires . In addition data can take longer to analyse
• Practical time and cost (2)

  training needs to be more thorough than for someone carrying out strcuctured interviews. Interviewer needs to have a background in sociology so they can recognise when the respondent has made a sociological important point.
• Practical - personal characteristics

  interviewers need good interpersonal skills so they can establish a good rapport (dobash and dobash shows the importance of having good interviewer skills ) respomdents are more likely to open up if they can identify with researcher for example if they have a similar class gender or ethnicity
• Theoretical lack of representativeness

  similar number means greater likelihood that the sample interviewed wont be representative this means it will be harder to make valid generalisations based on findings of the interviewers
• Theoretical- lack of reliability

  unstructured interviewes aren’t reliable because they are not standardised . Each interview is unique interviewers are free to ask different questions in each case if they feel it’s relevant to do so. This makes it virtually impossible for another interviewer to replicate and check findings to compare to their own
• Theoretical - validity

  unstructured interview are sen as producing g

  vaild data howerver critics argue that they involve an interaction between researcher and respondent which inevitability distorts the information obtained . Whatever interview technique used some form of social desirability effect may occur