Unstructured Interviews Flashcards
1
Q
What are Unstructured Interviews?
A
An unstructured interview is a guided conversation that does not follow a set list of predetermined questions. They typically produce qualitative data through the use of open questions.
2
Q
Practical - Weaknesses
A
- Having guided conversations with respondents is highly time consuming
- Unstructured interviews provide qualitative data through the use of open questions meaning interpretation of this data time consuming and sometimes difficult.
- Unstructured interviews create practical issues because they may not always study the choice of topic area. This is because they involve guided conversations between the interviewer and respondents such that they can often go off track from what the interviewer intended. This means that the data collated no longer covers the choice of topic area selected.
3
Q
Ethics - Weaknesses
A
- Ethics are compromised in unstructured interviews because they have potential to cover sensitive topics. This means that they can cause harm and distress to respondents.
- For example, Dobash and Dobash used unstructured interviews along with police reports to gain insight into domestic violence.
4
Q
Theoretical - Strengths
A
- Unstructured interviews are favoured by interpretivists because they gain in-depth insight into the lives of respondents through the use of non-scientific research methods.
- They agree with the use of this qualitative methods as it allows for close interactions with respondents.
- They believe that unstructured interviews produce validity through high levels of involvement by the researcher.
- This can be obtained by developing trust and rapport with the interviewee so that the researcher can see the world through their eyes
5
Q
Theoretical - Weaknesses
A
- Positivists disagree with the use of unstructured interviews because they prefer quantitative methods which allow for the research to remain detached from the respondents.
- It is impossible for researchers to remain detached in unstructured interviews which is criticised by positivists.
- Positivist sociologists would be concerned that unstructured interviews lack reliability and are therefore unscientific and subjective.
6
Q
Reliability - Strengths
A
- Jo Van Every study of heterosexual women and the family.
- She conducted unstructured interviews in the respondent’s homes that lasted around 90 minutes and covered a range of topics such as marriage, housework, childcare, paid work and finances.
- In order to ensure that she study had high reliability levels, she tape-recorded all the interviews.
- This meant that despite not having a consistent standardised procedure, she was still able to record the interviews to allow a similar replication of the study in order to test for consistency of results.
7
Q
Reliability - Weaknesses
A
- Reliability of unstructured interviews is low because there are no set questions without predetermined answers. This means that they lack a standardised procedure. Therefore, they are difficult to replicate entirely without the knowledge of what additional questions were used.
- For example, in Maguire’s (2007) study of street criminals, some interviews only lasted a few minutes whilst others developed into lengthy informal focus groups in the pub or in people’s homes. This amount of variation in length and content makes it impossible to standardise and replicate such interviews and therefore verify or check the data collected.
- Reliability is low because unstructured interviews produce qualitative data. This is often hard to compare unlike quantitative data. Therefore, there are limitations within reliability as it is difficult to compare data to test for consistency of results.
8
Q
Representativeness - Weaknesses
A
- Due to practical issues relating to the time-consuming nature of unstructured interviews, interviewers may have issues with obtaining data that is representative due to needing to conduct a lot of interviews. This may not be feasible in all cases as it will take too long.
9
Q
Validity - Strengths
A
- Validity is high because more detail is gained as a result of the open questions gaining qualitative data. This means that interviewers can gain more insight into the attitudes of the respondents which increases validity.
- In Oakley’s study ‘From here to maternity’, she visited most more than once, spent hours with them and even helped with household chores. This helped to develop rapport in which participants are more likely to share accurate in-depth information about themselves.
- Hoyle’s (2007) research on police attitudes to domestic incidents shows the usefulness of unstructured interviews to gather data that is higher in validity. Initial questions to the police about their attitude towards dealing with domestic incidents usually resulted in offhand ‘canteen culture’ comments such as ‘domestics are too much trouble’. However, when asked open-ended questions about specific incidents, officers said they had taken the time to be sympathetic when investigating them. This provides evidence that unstructured interviews can be used to gather data that has is more in-depth, hence providing more valid data.
10
Q
Validity - Weaknesses
A
- Unstructured interviews provide qualitative data through the use of open questions. This means that in order to analyse the data, there must be an element of interpretation which compromises validity as a result of interviewer bias.
