2.1 RM - Interviews Flashcards
What are structured interviews?
The researcher reads out a list of closed questions from an interview schedule and records the respondents answers to pre set categories
What are practical strengths of structured interviews?
- Training interviewers is straightforward and inexpensive
- quick and cheap
- can cover a fairly large sample
- easy to quantify
What are practical weaknesses of structured interviews?
- inflexible
- more expensive and time consuming than questionnaires
- limited superficial data
- hard to operationalise concepts
What are ethical strengths of structured interviews?
- informed consent
- confidential
- right to withdraw
What is an ethical weakness of structured interviews?
Can cause harm from asking sensitive or obtrusive questions
What are reliability strengths of structured interviews?
- standardised and controlled
- repeatable
- comparable
What are reliability weaknesses of structured interviews?
• interviewer bias
What is interviewer bias?
Where the interviewers tone of voice or body language influences the answer respondents give
What are representative strengths of structured interviews?
- large sample - likely to be representative
- improved response rate
- representative overview of a cross section of society
What is a representative weakness of structured interviews?
Skewed sample
What are validity strengths of interviews?
- good for simple factual data
- objective and detached - less researcher bias
- a little freedom to check understanding
What are validity weaknesses of questionnaires?
- can’t develop verstehen
- social desirability
- interviewer effect
- people lie, forget
- little freedom to explain
- researcher imposing their view
What do positivists think about structured interviews?
they like them because they produce quantitative data from which they can compare and see patterns
What do interpretivists think about structured interviews?
Don’t like them. They can’t develop verstehen as the data is limited and superficial
What are unstructured interviews?
Guided conversations, they are informal and the interviewer does not usually follow an interview schedule so the interviewer had the freedom to vary the interview
What are practical strengths of unstructured interviews?
- flexible
* can explore unfamiliar topics and raise new issues
What are the practical weaknesses of unstructured interviews?
- time consuming
- expensive - trained interviewers
- impossible to quantify data
- recording and analysing data is difficult
What are ethical strengths of unstructured interviews?
- good for exploring sensitive topics - rapport makes it a safe situation
- informed consent
- right to withdraw
- confidential
What are ethical weaknesses of unstructured interviews?
Harm from asking sensitive or obtrusive interviews
What are reliability weaknesses of unstructured interviews?
Impossible the replicate ( not standardised )
Interviewer bias
What are the representative weaknesses of unstructured interviews?
- time consuming
* skewed sample
What are validity strengths of unstructured interviews?
- Can check understanding
- Explaining views in detail
- develop verstehen
What are the validity weaknesses of unstructured interviews?
- interviewer bias
- interviewer effect
- people lie, exaggerate or forget
- social desirability
What do positivists think about unstructured interviews?
They don’t like them as recording and analysing data is difficult, it is impossible to quantify and find patterns
What do interpretivists think about unstructured interviews?
They like them as they are I depth and they can develop verstehen
