Unstructured interviews

Unstructured interviews

1. While structured interviews follow a standardised format, interviewers conducting unstructured interviews have complete freedom to vary the interview. Supporters argue that this brings a number of important advantages, but critics disagree, listing the numerous disadvantages of unstructured interviews.

2. Unstructured interviews are widely seen as a way of gathering valid data, enabling researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the interviewee’s world. There are several reasons for this:

   • The informality of unstructured interviews allows the interviewer to develop a rapport with the interviewee, which will lead to the latter being put at ease and therefore more likely to open up. For example, when Labov used a formal interview technique to study the language of black American children, he found that they appeared to be ‘linguistically deprived’. However, when using a more relaxed, informal interview style, the response was completely different; the children opened up, spoke freely, showing that they were competent speakers. Unstructured interviews are particularly useful when researching sensitive topics. Dobash and Dobash used them to study domestic violence, finding that the empathy and encouragement of the interviewer helped the interviewee to feel comfortable discussing difficult subjects.
   • Because there are no set questions, unstructured interviews allow the interviewee more opportunity to speak about what they believe to be important. This is in stark contrast to structured interviews, in which the researcher decides in advance what questions are worth asking, limiting the interviewee to a fixed range of possible answers. In giving them greater freedom to express their views, an unstructured interview is more likely to produce fresh insights and valid data. In addition, the interviewer’s probing can help develop the interviewee’s thoughts more clearly.
   • In structured interviews, there’s a real risk that the interviewee may misunderstand the question, or the interviewer may misunderstand the answer. Unstructured interviews erase this problem, as both the interviewee and interviewer can confirm meanings.
   • Unstructured interviews are highly flexible; the interviewer isn’t restricted to a set of fixed questions, and can explore whatever seems relevant. The researcher can formulate new ideas and hypotheses and then test them throughout the course of the interview. Unlike structured interviews, there is no need to go away and draw up a new interview schedule.
   • With structured interviews, researchers require some knowledge of the subject, and preferably would have a clear hypothesis before they begin interviewing. Without these, they would have little idea of what questions to ask. Where the subject is one that the researcher knows little about, unstructured interviews may be more useful, precisely because they are open-ended and exploratory. Interviewers can learn as they conduct the interview. Some sociologists use unstructured interviews as a starting point to develop initial ideas about a topic before going on to use more structured methods of investigation such as questionnaires.

3. Despite having numerous strengths, unstructured interviews also have a number of disadvantages:

   • Being in-depth, unstructured interviews take a long time to conduct, limiting the number of interviews that can be carried out, meaning that the researcher’s sample will be fairly small. In addition, the training needed for unstructured interviews is more thorough than that needed for structured interviews. The interviewer needs a background in sociology so that they can recognise when the interviewee has made a sociologically important point, and so they can probe further with an appropriate line of questioning. All of this adds to the cost of conducting the interviews. Finally, interviewers also need good interpersonal skills, enabling them to establish the rapport that is essential if interviewees are to answer fully and honestly.
   • The smaller numbers involved mean it’s more likely that the sample interviewed will not be representative, meaning it’ll be harder to make valid generalisations based on the findings of the interviews.
   • Unstructured interviews aren’t reliable because they aren’t standardised. Each interview is unique; interviewers are free to ask different questions in each case if they feel it’s relevant to do so, but this makes it virtually impossible for another researcher to replicate the interviews and check the findings or use said findings for comparisons.
   • Unstructured interviews use mainly open-ended questions, meaning their answers can’t be pre-coded. This makes it very difficult to count up and quantify the numbers of interviewees giving a particular answer. In turn, the lack of quantitative data makes unstructured interviews less useful for establishing cause-and-effect relationships and hypothesis testing.
   • Unstructured interviews are typically viewed as producing valid data. However, critics argue that the interaction between the interviewer and interviewee inevitably colours and distorts the obtained information.