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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

“Interpretive research begins and ends with the biography and self of the researcher." (Denzin, 1989, p.12). The positivist researcher is not affected by the subject of the research because he makes generalizations. (Saunders, 2003 p. 83). When the investigator is a positivist, he tends to use methods like experiments, surveys and field studies to generate data. In this approach, the interviewer is more likely to be an outsider which means that the investigator does not have any relation with the study group.

Teijlingen (2014), assert that semi structured interviews “consists of predetermined questions where every participant gets the same key question asked. However, on the other hand there is flexibility in how the questions are asked and what follow up or probing to use” (p.20). Similarly, Clifford, French and Valentine (2010), describes semi structured interview “as a verbal interchange where one person, the interviewer attempts to elicit information from another person by asking questions” (p.103). Furthermore, the use of semi structured interview unfolds in a conversational manner which offers participants the chance to explore issues they feel are important regardless of the already predetermined questions prepared by the researcher. Additionally,

However, this method also has some drawbacks. First of all, it requires the interviewer has enough interviewing techniques. Interviewer can drive the sentiment of interviewee, and maintain a neutral stance. Secondly, this interview has most questions are prepared and not change, so it lacks flexibility. And it is difficult to discuss the issues in depth. Interviewer cannot understand the thoughts of the respondents in detail. Finally, the results of research are easily affected by the personal factors of respondents. In other words, the result will be one-sided, and it cannot reflect most people's views.

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

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.

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).