Interviews: Methods In context

What are the 4 types of interviews?

Structured Interviews- An interview that uses close-ended questions and is very formal. The interviewer just asks questions and notes down the answers

Unstructured Interviews- An interview that uses open-ended questions

Semi-structured interviews- When the interviewer asks questions and can ask follow-up questions to gain more understanding.

Group interviews- When a group of people are invited to an open discussion that uses open-ended questions.

State three advantages of using unstructured interviews

Interviewer can build a rapport with interviewee- This will help put the interviewee at ease and they will be more likely to open up as opposed to in a structured formal interview.

The interviewer can clarify a question properly if the interviewee doesn't understand it which will help them to achieve more accurate results.

Similarly

State three disadvantages of using unstructured interviews

What are three advantages of using structured interviews?

They are useful for gathering straightforward information like someone's job.

They are reliable as there is a set structure to follow and a sociologist can't just do what they want therefore identical results are attainable.

Data can be easily quantified so it is suitable for hypothesis testing.

What are three disadvantages of using structured interviews?

They aren't valid as people may lie or exaggerate. Creates false data and reduces validity

Interviewers are needed and giving them training is expensive. More costly rather than sending out questionnaires or having group interviews.

The sample size that is attainable with interviews is significantly lower than that of something like Postal Questionnaires. Long time taken

Explain three advantages of using semi-structured interviews

They are more flexible so allow the sociologist to obtain richer and more detailed data. This is because semi-structured interviews allow the interviewers to explore topics in more depth according to what the interviewee says. This allows for more richer and detailed data.

There is room for rapport to be built between the interviewer and interviewee. Building rapport with the interviewee means that they will be more likely to open up.

Explain three disadvantages of semi-structured interviews

They can be time-consuming as the amount of questions asked can lead to lengthy conversations.

Also, they can be costly for the sociologist as semi-structured interviews don't have a pre-set structure so the interviewer will require training which can be quite expensive.