Disadvantages Of Unstructured Interviews

Research on interviews has generally shown that standardized procedures are higher in their reliability and validity than unstructured interviews. Learning how structured

An advantage of unstructured interviews would be that it is very informal; therefore, the respondent is more likely to be relaxed. This would be useful when asking them about material deprivation, as it could be quite a sensitive topic to some. Using the unstructured method is good for researching sensitive topics as empathy and trust can be built easier, just

However with practical issues may be seen as an important factor which influences sociologists choice of research methods. It is important to understand the topic or group being studied. For example, if the topic is sensitive, such as domestic violence, bullying, grades at school etc. For sensitive information, unstructured interviews would be the best research method as the researcher can build up a rapport with the participant, meaning that the participant would be more likely to open up to the researcher. For example, Dobash and Dobash carried out informal interviews on women who had experienced domestic violence.

“The semi-structured interview is a qualitative data collection strategy in which the researcher asks informants a series of predetermined but open-ended questions”(Ayres, 2008, p. 810).

A questionnaire is a list of a research or survey questions asked to respondents, and designed to extract quantitative date. Questionnaires are easily distributed to the community and can be completed and collected on the spot or be emailed or posted back to the researcher. Self completed questionnaires are the most common survey as they are cheap and can be passed to a lot of people. Some sociologists tend not to use questionnaires because of their low response rate and lack of validity. Also, some people may give false information so some researchers like to stick to interviews and experiments for increased accuracy. I will explore why sociologists shy away from using questionnaires.

Phenomenological interview limitations may appear due to the researcher’s lack of experience in conducting interviews (Downey, 2015); which may interfere with the researcher’s focus and intentionality (Ashworth, 2017). Limitations may occur with the relationship between the researcher and the interviewee, including power struggles which might affect trust and honest participant reflections (Boucher, 2017). Further, time limitations could impede upon a participants deliberation process during the interview process (Downey, 2015). If a researcher is to understand the essence of a phenomenon; a suspension of judgment is required during participant interviews (Ashworth, 2017). Additionally, the researcher will need to be extremely attentive to experience the study through the participants’ eyes (Kelley, 2016). Individuals may choose not to answer every question, which is acceptable; yet, missing data can also become a limitation to the study. However, if enough participants do not answer the same question, the question might need to be reframed or removed; additionally, secondary data, such as technical reports, white papers or additional publications might be necessary to validate the research question (Johnston, 2014).

Unstructured interviews are not made up of prepared questions. The interviewer will ask more open questions about board topics and then use follow-up questions to gain more answers in further detail. This method of interview is time-consuming however it enables the interviewee to answer questions in more detail and depth. It is possible that audio-recordings can be

Face-to-face interviews will be interview guide approach where there will be an outline of topics and issues that the interviewer will cover with the participant (Babbie &Rubin, 1993). Having an outline it allows the researcher to compare responses between participants and it reduces the interviewer biases (Babbie & Rubin, 1993). An outline is constructed where it will guide the researcher with the participant from one concern to another but in a conversational approach (Babbie & Rubin, 1993). Moreover, a study without any set structure the researcher and participant can get side tracked and not answer the questions needed for the study research. The length of the interview will be approximately thirty minutes, but there will be no time restriction. The information will be recorded similar to a focus group, with a recording device and notes occasionally. Before analyzing the data, the researcher will examine his or her “own thoughts and feelings” because it’s a crucial process in understanding the participants (Babbie & Rubin, 1993, p.

Unstructured interviews tend to be unreliable and they are often not job related. These are going to be used to get a more general idea of what the individual is like. I will be starting off with these questions first then go into my structured questions.

The pilot study conducted in this research shows that there were a few problems within the overall design of the interview and therefore the researchers decided to make some minor changes to their design, these changes included altering the questions so they were open ended, they also made the interview less structured in able to gain more focused answers in which they could analyse.

Interviews – Used to gather qualitative data. Interviews allow for more exploration into the subject or factors being researched. The advantages of interviews are that the researcher can easily control the way in which the interviews are constructed as interviews can be structured, semi structured or unstructured (YMAY 61). The book gave an example of sociologist Michelle Lamont interviewing upper-middle-class men in France and the United States about their tastes. She was able to have the interview be unstructured, open-ended style which allowed the 160 subjects interviewed to

“Problems researched with the use of appropriate methods greatly enhance the value of the research.” (Sekaran, 2003) Data can be collected through interviews, questionnaires, observations, and through other techniques, like projective tests. In even more detail, interviews can be conducted in a variety of different ways such as over the phone, through the computer, interviews through the electronic media, and face-to-face. Questionnaires can be conducted personally or administered electronically. “Interviewing, administering questionnaires, and observing people and phenomena are the three main data collection methods in survey research.” (Sekaran, 2003) As stated before, data can be collected in many different ways; however the value of the research is only greatly enhanced when personal opinions and bias is left out of the collection of data.

Epistemological criticism argues that all approaches are unlikely to produce consistent evidence because of the inherent property. It will generate a new viewpoint. However, through abundant reading, triangulation will enlarge width and depth in qualitative research and provide an analysis with security- a overall perspective. Participants can improve the validity of research. Bloor (1978) argues that sociologists can establish a correspondence with participants, in which participants can identify, give assent and judgement to sociologists.

Interpretivist don’t favour structured interviews as they use s pre-set structure which then means that the interviewee can’t discuss what they believe is important to them, also by not having open-ended questions it doesn’t allow the interviewee to be able to express themselves in their own words. Whereas positivists favour structured interviews as they achieve their main goals of reliability, generalisability and representative. This is because there are standardised questions and answers which produce reliable data as other researchers will then be able to replicate the interview. Also there is already pre-coded responses which allows for the production of quantitative data, identifying and measuring behaviour patterns as well as establishing cause–and–effect relationships.

I enjoyed reading your post. One of the things that you noted was that written forms of communication help ensure effective treatment planning of care. I read an article about the unstructured interview. The article points out the importance of the initial interview and how it is the beginning of the counseling relationship and the cornerstone of the assessment. Another thing that stands out in the article is the different types of clinical interviewing and the accuracy of diagnosing. For example, it discusses the accuracy of diagnosis based on different types of interviews such as unstructured interviews is highly on the counselor’s ability to recognize DSM-IV-TR diagnostic symptoms. Reading the article reminded me of how important