Question

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both structured and unstructured interviews.

Answer 1

Advantages and Disadvantages of structured interview and unstructured interview

Structured Interview:

A Structured interview (also known as a standardized interview or a researcher-administered survey) is a quantitative research method commonly employed in survey research.The aim of this approach to ensure that each interview is presented with exactly the same questions in the same order.

Structured interviews are a means of collecting data for a statistical survey.In this case,the data is collected by an interviewer rather than through a self-administered quetionnaire.Interviewers read the questions exactly as they on the survey questionnaire.The choice of answers to the quetions is often fixed (close-ended) in advance,though open-ended questions can also be included within a structured interview.

Advantages of structured interview:

• Standardised questions =a standardised response,all respondents faced with the same questions in the same order
• Potential to pre-code answers using computers to analyse the data makes it more straight forward to produce statistical results as well as being able to quote interviews in the study.
• High response rate as new respondents can be accessed if sample size drops.
• The interviews is present to explain the question to avoid misinterpretation.

Disadvantages of Structured interviews:

• The interviwer can potentially effect the answers through using tone of voice and body language
• Interview is only as good as the questions it contains if the interviewer or the respondents misinterprets the data then it becomes invalid
• Interviewing people is time consuming and costly to higher interviewers
• People may change their answers because of 'social desirability bias' since they dont wanna sound bad infront of someone else.

Unstructured Interviews:

An Unstructured interview is an interview in which there is no specific set of predetermined quetions,altough the interviewer usually has certain topics in mind that they wish to cover during the interview.

Unstructured interviews flow like an everyday conversation and tend to be more informal and open-ended.

Advantages of Structured interview:

• Rapport and sensitivity -informality allows interviewer to gain rapport so more likely to open up.eg.Labov in format interview found it hard to open up as uneasy as linguistically deprived but by using relaxed style(eg.sitting on floor) children relaxed and opened up
• Checking understanding - easier for interviewer and interviewee to check each others meanings - if interviewee doesn't understand question they can ask follow up questions to find out more
• Flexibility-no fixed set of questions so can explore whats interesting/relevant at the time.Interviewer can find new ideas and hypotheses

Disadvantages of Unstructured Interview:

• Practical problems-unstructured interviews take long time to conduct-limits number that can be carried out=small sample size compared with methods such as questionnaires - less representative
• Reliability - not reliable as not standardized-each one unique as may ask different questions to different people if something interesting occurs so its almost impossible to replicate
• Ethical issues-in an interview it may be hard to not answer questions that may be sensitive or that interviewee doesn't want to talk about-also issues with confidentially or harm if sensitive topic.