informal/unstructured interviews

Question 1

practical

Answer 1

✓ High response rate: As an interviewer is present the response rate tends to be much higher than for a method like questionnaires as individuals find it harder to refuse when face to face.
✓ Literacy: Using oral interviews means that they can be used with individuals who may not be able to read such as young children.

× Expensive: They are more costly than a postal questionnaire as you will have to train interviewers.

× Time consuming: Being in-depth they take a long time to conduct. The qualitative nature of the information makes them time-consuming & difficult to analyse. This also makes them more costly.

× Skills of the researcher: If the researcher is not trained well &/or not a ‘people person’, this may mean they are less able to draw out respondents’ thoughts & meanings which can lower the validity of the research.

× Hired-hand effect: Interviewing on a large scale involves employing interviewers who may be less committed to the enquiry than the researcher, leading to the ‘hired-hand effect’. This includes the failure of adequately recording open answers, deliberately questioning the wrong people out of convenience, & even (occasionally) outright fraudulent completion of schedules by the interviewer (i.e. without interviewing). All these possible factors can crucially affect the validity of the data.

Question 2

ethics

Answer 2

✓ Fewer ethical problems: Consent can be gained, anonymity & confidentiality are maintained & individuals can refuse to answer questions that they are uncomfortable with, or withdraw their data if they are not happy with it being used.

× Not as ethical as questionnaires: Individuals are more likely to feel pressured to participate & answer questions due to the presence of an interviewer. Interviewee may reveal personal details which they later regret due to the more comfortable, conversational nature of the method.

Question 3

reliability

Answer 3

× Lack reliability: Unstructured/ informal interviews are not set & standardised with no pre-set questions or pre-determined answers, so they will not be reliable as they cannot be repeated to get the same or similar results. This makes it extremely difficult to compare respondents’ answers, which in turn makes it difficult to arrive at a conclusion or a generalisation
.
× Each informal interview is unique: This means they cannot be replicated & the data cannot be verified.

Question 4

validity ++

Answer 4

✓ High in validity: They may produce more valid responses as the interviewer can clarify the meaning of a question & clear up any misunderstandings.

✓ Good for sensitive subjects: They are useful for finding out about sensitive subjects because the rapport (relationship of trust & understanding) & informal nature of the interview should mean that individuals will be more open to discussing sensitive subjects & perhaps being a bit more honest. E.g. about domestic violence.

✓ No set questions: With unstructured/ informal interviews there are no set questions so this gives the interviewee more opportunity to discuss what they think is important; as they are free to express themselves they make the interview more valid.

Question 5

validity —

Answer 5

× Interviewer bias: The validity of the answers may also be affected by interviewer bias where the characteristics of the interviewer influence the responses that they receive. (E.g. being interviewed by someone of a different gender or ethnicity to you may affect your answers).

× Social desirability effect: Since interviewing involves social interaction in which the researcher’s status is known, the respondent can give an answer which they believe the interviewer wishes to hear, rather than what they actually think. The respondent may want to present themselves in a positive light & therefore give socially desirable answers which therefore affect the validity of the data.

× Leading questions & influence of interviewer: Questions that lead a respondent into answering in a certain way may be asked by interviewer which will influence responses. The body language & facial expression of interviewer can also influence responses given.

Question 6

Representativeness

Answer 6

× Lack representativeness: As they are expensive & time consuming this means that very few can be carried out making the sample gained from them small & unrepresentative. Therefore, generalisations cannot be made from the results. E.g. Dobash & Dobash only carried out 109 interviews.

Question 7

theory

Answer 7

✓ Clarify meanings & gain insight: Interpretivists suggest it is much easier for the researcher to clarify a participants meanings & gaining insight into these meanings are what is important when conducting research, rather than simply collecting social facts that positivists prefer.
✓ Motivations: It is possible to find out about what motivates people in particular situations.

✓ Highly flexible: Not restricted to fixed questions in advance, so it can generate new ideas or hypothesis.

× Interviewer bias & distortion of data: Positivists suggest that interviewer bias & the relationship between the interviewee & the participant will distort the data gained making it subjective & non-scientific. They also claim that the data cannot be converted into statistics & cannot be analysed. Therefore, it is not possible to come up with ‘social facts’ from informal interviews.