Interviews

Question 1

What are the 4 types of interviews?

Answer 1

Structured, semi structured, unstructured, group interviews.

Question 2

What are 4 characteristics of an interviewer that could effect the interviewees answers?

Answer 2

Age. Class. Tone. Sex. This can be linked to interviewer bias.

Question 3

How can the interviewer effect be avoided?

Answer 3

Using skilled interviews and non directive or matching the characteristics of the interviewer and interviewee together.

Question 4

What are 4 advantages of unstructured interviews?

Answer 4

1. P- Gather in depth data. 2. P- Large amounts of people and can build rapport with the individuals. 3. E- Few ethical issues as you can arguably ensure consent. You can clarify and ask follow up questions. 4. It offers flexibility as there are no fixed questions you can explore what’s relevant at the time.

Question 5

What are 5 disadvantages of unstructured interviews?

Answer 5

1. P- Cost- employing the interviewees. 2. P- Possibility of it being time consuming. 3. P - Unable to collect statistical data. 4. T- May lack representaiveness as there may be too much variation in answers. 5. T- Its not reliable as they can not be standardized or generalized.

Question 6

What are 3 advantages of structured interviews?

Answer 6

1. Easily quantifiable. 2. Ability for statistical data. 3. Higher response rate as interviewer is present.

Question 7

What are 3 examples of disadvantages of structured interviews?

Answer 7

1. P- May be costly to train interviewers. 2. P- Time consuming. 3. T- Reduces validity due to restricted answers.

Question 8

What are 4 advantages of group interviews?

Answer 8

1. More open discussion. 2. Able to observe interactions and body language. 3. Participants can through ideas around which stimulates thinking producing reflective data. 4. You can interview a large amount of people at one time.

Question 9

What are 5 disadvantages of group interviews?

Answer 9

1. People may dominate the group. 2. Possible disruption. 3. Peer pressure reduces validity. 4. Loss of focus. 5. Interviewer effects.

Question 10

What did Farkas and Beron study?

Answer 10

The verbal skills of parents and children. This produced quantative data but may have been biased as the researcher could impose their own ideas.

Question 11

What did Ruth Lupton find?

Answer 11

Investigated the relation between poor areas and underachieving schools. They were able to build rapport with the people however it was hard to compare responses.

Question 12

What was Paul Willis study?

Answer 12

Why working class student get wc jobs. He was able to observe body language and get the children to act naturally around him however it was time consuming.

Question 13

What type of sociologists would prefer closed interviews?

Answer 13

Positivist as they provide quantative and valid information.

Question 14

What is an example of a study with structures interviews?

Answer 14

Young and Wilmotts study into working class families.

Question 15

What happened in Young and Wilmotts study?

Answer 15

They structured interviews in their research into yhe extended family in East London. They interviewed 933 people, not all themselves and the inteviewers instead of writing down their answer wrote down an appropriate code number or at some points a very short and simple reply

Question 16

What is an example of a semi structured interview?

Answer 16

Oakley as she researched her book becoming a mother. As a result 30% of the mothers even said that the research had been a relief for them to talk.

Question 17

Whats an example of a study which used unstructured interviews?

Answer 17

Dobash and Dobashs study into domestic violence

Question 18

What happened in Dobash and Dobashs study?

Answer 18

They interviewed victims of domestic violence and the people who had worked with and helped the victims. They then used questions on a variety of aspects such as socialisation into the use of violence. There were constant interviews between 2-12 hours, which took place within a few days after the women’s arrival at a domestic violence refuge. They found that domestic violence was more likely to take place if men felt as if their authority had been threatened.

Question 19

What is a way that interviewers are trained to overcome interviewers bias?

Answer 19

they are trained to be non directive, not offering an opinion or showing approval and disapproval to answers.

Question 20

Why can even unstructured interviews which are high in validity be still argued to not be fully valid?

Answer 20

In interviews they are still in an artifical situation, so you are hearing what people say that act like rather then observing them in their natural surroundings.

Question 21

Who are 3 sociologists that attempted to improve the validity of their work?

Answer 21

Narrow, Becker and Kinsey

Question 22

How did Nazroo attempt to improve the validity of his work?

Answer 22

He conducted research into the health of Britain’s ethnic minorities and ensured that interviews were conducted in participants language of choice as well as matching the ethnicity of that interviewer to that of the participants.

Question 23

How did Becker attempt to improve the validity of his work?

Answer 23

He took an aggressive approach when interviewing school teachers, aiming to squeeze information out of participants, playing dumb and playing devils advocate.

Question 24

How did Kinsey attempt to improve the validity of his work?

Answer 24

In his research into sexuality, he asked rapid questions, repeated questions later to check and conducted follow up interviews 18 months later.