Studied by 4 people
What is an interview?
A research method that relies on asking questions in order to collect data.
What are the four types of interviews?
Structured interviews
Unstructured interviews
Semi-structured interviews
Group interviews
What is a structured interview?
When the interviewer has strict instructions on how to ask the questions and uses the same standardised questions each time.
What is an unstrcutured interview?
When the interviewer has complete freedom to vary the questions and ask follow up questions to dig deeper.
What is a semi-structured interview?
When the interviewer uses the same set of questions, but is free to ask additional questions.
AO2: Who used semi-structured interviews to dig deeper and how?
Kitsuse (1963): always followed up questions by asking “How do you mean?” as a way of gaining additional information.
What are group interviews?
When a small group of people are being interviewed at the same time by one interviewer.
What are the strengths of group interviews?
Participants feel more comfortable in a group → more likely to open up.
The ideas shared in a group stimulate each others thinking → more reflective and rich data.
A useful way of gathering initial data for later.
A way to use both questioning and observe the way people behave in a group.
What are the limitations of group interviews?
A few individuals may dominate the discussion and prevent others from contributing.
The researcher has to be able to keep the group focused on the topic of discussion.
Peer pressure may prevent participants from saying what they truly believe.
Data generated from a group is harder to analyse.
What are the practical issues of structured interviews?
Training interviewers is simple due to the simple nature of structured interview.
It adds to the cost having to hire and train interviewers.
As structured interviews are quick and cheap to do, you can have a large sample size.
They are useful for gathering straight forward, factual information such as personal details.
They tend to use close-ended questions, which makes the information easily quantified.
AO2: What is a real life example of the high response rate of structured interviews?
Young and Willmott (1962): they approached 987 people for their sample and only 54 refused.
How can researchers improve the response rate for structured interviews?
Researchers can increase response rates by making multiple call backs. However, this increases the cost of the survey.
What is the disadvantage of the response rate of structured interviews?
Those who are willing to be interviewed may not be typical of the population → lowers the representativeness.
Why are structured interviews reliable?
The questions are standardised.
Why are structured interviews low in validity?
They tend to use close-ended questions which can lower the validity if none of the responses align with what the interviewee wants to say.
There is little freedom to clarify any misunderstandings.
People may lie or exaggerate.
Which feminist criticises structured interviews for being patriarchal and distorting women's experiences?
Graham (1983)
What does Graham (1983) say about structured interviews?
She argues that questionnaires and structured interviews are patriarchal and distort women’s experiences → invalidity.
How could structured interviews be seen as patriarchal?
The researcher, rather than the female participant decides what’s important and controls the conversation.
Interviews see women as isolated individuals rather than looking at their experiences in the context of the social structures that oppress them.
They impose the researcher’s categories onto women → difficult for women to express their own experiences and beliefs.
What are the advantages of unstructured interviews? [5]
Can build rapport.
The interviewee has more of a say.
You can avoid misunderstanding.
More flexibility.
You can explore unfamiliar topics.
What are disadvantages of unstructured interviews?
Practical problems.
Low representativeness.
Low reliability.
Difficult to quantify.
Can still have low validity.
Why do unstructured interviews allow us to build rapport?
As they are informal → the interviewer can develop a rapport with the interviewee.
This puts them at ease and encourages them to open up.
AO2: What is a real life example of unstructured interviews allowing interviewers to build rapport?
Labov (1973): when structured interviews were used to study the language of Black American pupils, he found that they weren’t as willing to respond.
But the more relaxed style of unstructured interviews made the children more responsive.
How is the flexibility of unstructured interviews a benefit?
As the researcher is conducting the interviews, they are able to formulate and test new hypotheses.
There’s no need to start again, creating a new interview schedule and set of questions.
Why are unstructured interviews better for exploring unfamilair topics?
Knowledge of the topic and a clear hypothesis would be needed before you start conducting structured interviews.
As unstructured interviews are open-ended and exploratory, they are good for exploring topics we have little knowledge of.
What are the practical problems of unstructured interviews?
They take a long time to conduct.
They require more training and an interviewer with a background in sociology.
The interviewer needs good interpersonal skills and be able to establish rapport.
Why is representativeness a disadvantage of unstructured interviews?
They take a long time to conduct → small sample size.
This makes them less representative.
This makes it harder to make valid generalisations.
Why are unstructured interviews low in reliability?
Due to their lack of standardisation they are not reliable.
Each interview is unique and the relationships between the interviewer and interviewee is different, so it would be impossible to replicate.
Why is it hard to quantify the information gained from unstructured interviews?
Unstructured interviews tend to use open-ended questions so it’s difficult to quantify the data.
What is the disadvantage of having information that's hard to quantify?
This also makes it hard to establish cause-and-effect relationships and test your hypothesis.
How may critics say that unstructured interviews can still produce invalid data?
Some critics see unstructured interviews as an interaction that distorts the data obtained.
What are examples of interviewer bias?
The interviewer may ask leading questions.
The interviewer may influence the interviewee's answers through their body language, facial expressions or tone of voice.
The interviewer may identify too closely with the interviewee.
AO2: What is a real llife example of an interviewer who identified too closely with their participants?
Oakley (1982): she admits that as a mother, she found it difficult to remain neutral when interviewing other women about maternity and childbirth.
AO2: What is a real life example of power inequalities impacting an interview?
Rich (1968): when adults interview children, the child often feels the need to please the interviewer.
AO2: What is a real life example of cultural differences impacting an interview?
Mead (1943): her study on teens in Samoa has been criticised as she did not speak the language, so was unable to realise that the person she interviewed had deliberately lied to her.
What are the ethical issues of interviews?
Interviews tackling sensitive topics or involving vulnerable groups risk causing psychological harm.
Interviewees may feel pressured to answer all questions.
Researchers should gain interviewee’s informed consent, guarantee anonymity and make it clear that they don’t have to answer any of the questions they don’t want to.
AO2: What are examples of the way in which sociologists can improve the validity of interviews?
Kinsey (1953): he asked the questions quickly, giving the interviewees little time to create a false answer and used follow-up interviews to check previous answers.
Nazroo (1997): when surveying on the health of minority ethnic groups, participants were interviewed in the language of their choice."
What factors can impact the validity of interviews?
Interviewer bias
Artificiality
Status and power inequalities
Cultural differences
The social desirability effect
What are some examples of interviewer bias?
Asking leading questions.
The interviewer's body language, facial expression or tone of voice.
The interviewer may identify too closely with their interviewees.
What is a leading question?
A questions that prompts or encouraged the answer wanted.
AO2: What is a real life example of a sociologists who identified too closely with their interviewees?
Oakley (1982): she admits that as a mother, she found it difficult to remain neutral when interviewing other women about maternity and child birth.
What are the practical issues of using interviews to research education?
The linguistics and intellect of pupils are less developed → practical issues for the researcher.
Especially with unstructured interviews, pupils may struggle staying on topic.
Pupils have better verbal than literacy skills which may make interviews more successful than questionnaires.
Pupils are part of a vulnerable group and may be unsettled by interviews.
Pupils and parents may find an interview that takes place in school off-putting.
Parents also tend to have busy schedules and may be unlikely to co-operate in a lengthy interview.
The busy school environment means that interviews conducted during school hours would face disruption.
Schools have active communication channels that means the content of the interview could be shared amongst pupils and teachers, which may impact the responses participants give.
Teachers may fear that an interview held in school could be overheard by their colleagues.
Teachers work under rigid timetables that mean most unstructured interviews would have to take place outside of school ours.
What are some examples of how pupils' linguistics and intellect may cause issues for researchers using interviews?
Pupils may be reluctant to talk.
Pupils may not understand long, complex questions or abstract concepts.
Pupils’ vocabulary may be limited.
They may use language incorrectly or differently, e.g. slang.
They may have a poor attention span or memory.
Who claims that pupils are more literal minded and use a different logic to adults?
Powney and Watts (1987)
Why may structured interviews not produce valid data when researching pupils?
Structured interviews may not produce valid data as pupils may be put off by their formal style as the interviewer may appear like a teacher.
AO2: Who was a sociologist that was able to overcome the low validity of interviews and how?
Di Bentley (1987): made the interview less formal by showing participants a silly image of her and her daughter. During the interview, she nodded, smiled and made eye contact to maintain this relaxed environment.
How may research characterisitcs impact access and response rate when using interviews to research education?
The lower down in the school hierarchy an interviewee is, the more gatekeepers they have to pass.
With the right support, the hierarchical nature of schools can be beneficial, e.g. headteachers can instruct teachers to let pupils out from class for interviews.
Schools may be reluctant to allow researchers to conduct interviews during class time as it is disruptive or they don’t approve of the research topic.
Parental permission is required to interview children.
AO2: What is a real life example of how the research topic can impact access/response rate?
Field (1987): when studying pupils’ experience of sex education in school, there was a high refusal rate of 29% due to a lack of parental consent.
Who said that pupils may see interviewers as teachers in disguise?
Bell (1981)
How does power and status differences impact the validity of interviews used to investigate education?
When interviewees have less power/status than the interviewer, then they may lie, hide information or do things to try and please the interviewer.
Interviewees may also be less confident or articulate.
Bell (1981): notes that pupils may see the interviewer as “teachers in disguise”. This may cause pupils to try and seek the approval of the researcher.
Pupils often believe that adults know better so may defer themselves to interviewers, e.g. changing their answer if the interviewer implies that their original one was incorrect.
Inequalities can also be seen between parents and interviewers. E.g. Working-class parents may see the interviewer as having a higher status to them.
According to Greene and Hogan (2005), how can you improve the validity when interviewing pupils? [4]
Use open-ended questions Do not interrupt pupils’ answers.
Tolerate long pauses to allow pupils to think about what they want to say.
Acknowledge that pupils are easily influenced.
Avoid repeating questions.
Who said that group interviews are suitable for researching pupils and why?
Greene and Hogan (2005) as it creates a safe peer setting and reproduces environments that pupils are comfortable with, such as classrooms.
What is an advantage of group interviews?
They can reveal interactions between pupils.
AO2: What is an example of how group interviews can reveal interactions between pupils?
Willis (1976): in his study of the lads, he used group interviews are suitable which illustrated how the boys reinforced each otehrs' opposition to authority.
What is a disadvantage of group interviews?
Pupils area easily influenced by peer pressure → reduces the validity.
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