Unstructured Interviews

Question 1

What are the specific advantages and disadvantages of an unstructured interview?

Answer 1

:) interviewees can explain what they mean by their answer
:) the interviewer and interviewee can check each other’s meaning
:( interviewer might ask misleading questions
:( social desirability effect

Question 2

What did Dobash and Dobash do?

Answer 2

Used unstructured interviews with female victims of domestic violence. 109 unstructured interviews.

Question 3

What is a good and bad point about Dobash and Dobash’s study?

Answer 3

:( senstivity - people may not cope well with the topic and get emotionally upset
:) high number of interviews

Question 4

What did Sharpe do?

Answer 4

Used unstructured interviews to study girls attitudes to education, family and work. Gained rich qualitative data which gave her a picture of their feelings, aspirations and views.

Question 5

What is a good and bad point about Sharpe’s study?

Answer 5

:( researcher characteristics - much other than the girls so may influence their responses
:) Girls can easily withdraw

Question 6

Who did an education example using unstructured interviews?

Answer 6

Fuller

Question 7

What did Fuller do?

Answer 7

Study of self-negating prophecy.
Black girls in a school who had all been labelled negativity and who had responded by becoming pro-education but anti-school.

Question 8

What is a good and bad point about Fuller’s study?

Answer 8

:) Proves SNP

:( Unrepresentative