Quantitative: Structured Interviews (Primary) Flashcards
How are all interviews different?
- Face to face or by telephone.
- Different types of interviews → difference in how the interviewer varies the questions.
What are structured interviews?
Structured = each interview is conducted in the same way → the same questions, order, wording, tone, etc.
What are unstructured interviews?
Unstructured = an informal, guided conversation. The interviewer can vary the questions, order, wording, tone, etc. and can ask follow up questions. Group interviews are fairly unstructured.
What are semi-structured interviews?
Semi-structured = the same set of questions in common but the interviewer can search for more information and ask additional questions.
What is a developed definition of structured interviews?
- Like questionnaires → close-ended questions and a fixed set of prepared questions.
- Produces mainly quantitative data.
- Questions are read out and filled in by a trained interviewer.
- Involves a social interaction.
- Share many of the same strengths and weaknesses as questionnaires. Differences mainly come from the interaction between the interviewer and interviewee.
What are positive practical issues of structured interviews?
- Can cover a large number of people. Young and Willmott (1962) used them in their research of families in east London.
- Suitable for gathering straightforward factual information.
- Results are easily quantified due to using close ended questions. Suitable for hypothesis testing.
- Training interviewers is relatively straightforward and not expensive.
- Response rates are usually higher than questionnaires.
What are negative practical issues of structured interviews?
- Not flexible.
- Not suitable for studying unfamiliar topics where the researcher has little idea what the important issues are → therefore, a clear hypothesis is important.
- Snapshots taken at one moment in time = doesn’t capture the dynamic nature of social life.
What are ethical issues of structured interviews?
- Relatively few.
- Social interaction = the interviewee may feel pressured into answering questions.
- Feminists argue it is potentially oppressive to women interviewees.
- Informed consent → interviewees should be able to have the right to refuse a question.
- The right to anonymity and confidentiality.
What are theoretical issues of structured interviews?
- Favoured by positivists.
- Produces representative and generalisable findings.
- Reliable, objective and attached.
- Able to test hypotheses and identify the cause and effect of relationships.
- Can establish correlations between variables, for example, between gender and crime.
Are structured interviews high or low in reliability?
- Structured interviews are easy to standardise and control.
- Easy for other researchers to recreate and replicate.
- Answers can be compared easily to identify similarities and differences.
= High in reliability.
Are structured interviews high or low in representativeness?
- Quick and cheap to conduct = large numbers.
- High response rates and sophisticated sampling techniques help to improve representativeness.
- Representative data can be used to make generalisations.
- Downside → those with time or willingness to be interviewed may be untypical.
What are interpretivists’ view on structured interviews?
- Structured interviews use close-ended questions → forces answers from pre-set answers, which means the data produced is low in validity.
- Gives interviewers little freedom to explain questions or clarify misunderstandings.
- People can lie or exaggerate.
- Interview schedule has to be drawn up in advance → the sociologist has to decide in advance what is important. This may not coincide (correspond) with what the interviewee thinks is important. Risk imposing researchers ideas or framework on the interviewee = low in validity.
How do interviews and interaction work in structured interviews?
(State differences, cultural differences, social desirability, interviewer bias)
- State differences → may affect the interviewee’s honesty or willingness to cooperate.
- Cultural differences → may lead to misunderstandings. Interviewers may not know when they are being lied to.
- Social desirability → interviewees may give answers that make them appear more interesting, normal, etc.
- Interviewer bias → may ask leading questions, or influence answers by their tone of voice.
Methods in Context links.
What are practical issues with having young interviewees?
Young interviewees may…
- Be less articulate or more reluctant to talk.
- Not understand long, complex questions or some abstract concepts.
- Have a more limited vocabulary and use words incorrectly or differently from adults (for example, slang).
- Have a shorter attention span and poorer memory retrieval than adults.
- They read body language differently from adults.
What are additional practical issues?
- Can lead to misunderstandings and incorrect or incomplete answers = less valid data.
- Unstructured interviews may be more suitable than structured.
- Children may however have more difficulty keeping to the point.
- Young children tend to be more literal minded and often pay attention to unexpected details in the questions - Powney and Watts (1987).
- Therefore thorough training is needed for the interviewer which can cost more £.
- Schools have very active informal communication channels - can influence responses given by later interviewees = reduced validity.
- Location = on school grounds?
- Time - either outside of school hours or disrupts the school day.
- Parents may only take part if they see the benefits for their child.
