interviews

what is an interview?

a self-report technique where a researcher asks questions and records a participant's responses

what are the three types of interview?

• structured interviews

• unstructured interviews

• semi-structured interviews

what are structured interviews?

interviews that are made up of a pre-determined set of questions that are asked in a fixed order

what are the strengths of structured interviews?

• straightforward to replicate - due to standardised format

• less researcher bias - only ask pre-set questions and don’t deviate

what are the weaknesses of structured interviews?

• lower validity - answers tend to lack depth when restricted to pre-set questions

• social desirability - risk that interviewees may lie (decreases validity)

what are unstructured interviews?

interviews where there are no set questions, only a general aim that a certain topic will be discussed

what are the strengths of unstructured interviews?

• higher validity - allows greater depth and detail of answers to be collected

• more flexibility

what are the weaknesses of unstructured interviews?

• social desirability - risk that interviewers may lie (decreases validity)

• analysis is harder and more subjective - different questions have been asked

what are semi-structured interviews?

interviews that fall between structured and unstructured interviews:

• can have a pre-determined set of questions but interviewers can ask follow-up questions

what are the common errors in question design that should be avoided where possible?

• overuse of jargon

• emotive language

• leading questions

• double-barrelled questions

• double negatives

what is jargon?

technical terms that are only familiar to those within a jargon - specialised field or area

what are leading questions?

questions that guide a respondent towards a particular answer

what are double-barrelled questions?

questions that contain two questions in one - asks about more than one topic in a single question