Interviews

Interviews:

  • An interview is a conversation between two or more people, where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.

  • There are 4 types of interviews

    • Structured - Mostly closed questions which are standardised (QT)

    • Unstructured - Mostly open questions which are like a conversation (QL)

    • Semi Structured - Series of set questions but other avenues could be explored (QL/QT)

      • Cicourel and Kitsuse (1963) - always followed up their questions with ‘How do you mean?’ in order to gain more information

    • Group interviews - Up to a dozen interviewees. (QL/QT)

      • Willis (1977) used group interviews as part of his research into the ‘lads’ and schooling.

  • Graham (1983) argues that survey methods such as interviews are patriarchal and give a distorted, invalid picture of women’s experiences

  • Labov (1973) found that the langauge of black American children during interviews appeared to be tounge-tied and ‘linguistically deprived’. However, adopting a more relaxed, informal style brought a completely different response.

  • Dobash and Dobash (1979) used unstructured interviews to study domestic violence and the empathy and encouragement of the interviewer will help the respondants to feel comfortable discussing difficult or personal topics

  • Oakley (1982) admits that as a mother, she found it difficult to remain detatched and neutral when interviewing other women about maternity and childbirth (Interviewer Bias affects validity)

  • Rich (1968) shows that when adults interview children, the child’s need to impress the interviewer will affect answers and behaviour (Status and Power inequalities)

Griffin (1962) abandoned interviewing in favour of participant observation as a result of gender/ethnic differences in power shaping the interview

Structured Interviews

Unstructured Interviews

Semi-Structured Interviews

Study

Young and Wilmot (1975)

Research on the extended family in East London. 933 people studied.

Labov (1973) found that the langauge of black American children during interviews appeared to be tounge-tied and ‘linguistically deprived’. However, adopting a more relaxed, informal style brought a completely different response.

Butler - Young Women and Islam

30 semi-structured interviewers with young Muslim women in Britain to find out about their relationship with their faith.

Advantages

P: Training is cheap and easy. Easily quantifiable.

E: No deception, everyone is treated fairly

T: Reliable and can be easy to compare data

P: They are flexible, they can be easy to schedule and make

E: There is no hawthorne effect

T: The data is valid, the researcher gets a deeper understanding of the respondant’s world/

P: Easy to quantify

E:

T: Provides both Quantitative and Qualitative data. Reliable to a degree. Provides validity

Disadvantages

People may lie or exaggerate

Interviewer bias

Close ended questions limit validity.

Only provides a snapshot taken at one moment in ones life

Time consuming

Training is required for the interviewer

Must have good interpersonal skills.

Non standardises format means they could be unreliable and unrepresentative

Expensive to pay for services and training for the interviewer

Difficult to replicate

Interviewer bias could affect the validity