Interviews: Positives and Negatives

Structured Interviews
1. Practical issues
  1. Positives
    1. Training is inexpensive
    2. Can cover a large amount of people
    3. Suitable for gathering factual information
    4. Information is relatively easy to quantify
  2. Negatives
    1. Can't match the high amount of people covered by email questionaires
    2. Could be more cheaply out-performed by questionnaires
2. Response Rate
  1. Positives
    1. High response rate
    2. Many people find it harder to turn down face-to-face interviews
    3. Can be improved with persistent call backs
  2. Negatives
    1. Lower response rate than questionaires
    2. Possible ethical issues if someone feels pressured to disclose information
3. Reliability
  1. Positives
    1. Each interview is conducted the same way
    2. High reliability meaning easy comparisons
  2. Negative
    1. Reliability can be difficult if there are multiple researchers.
4. Validity
  1. Positives
    1. The presence of an interviewer may support honesty
  2. Negatives
    1. The close ended questions restrict interviewees to pre-set answers
    2. Very little room to clarify or explain
    3. People may lie or exaggerate
5. Inflexibility
  1. Negatives
    1. Inflexible due to questions being developed in advance
    2. Lack of flexibility causes damage to validity
6. Femenist Critiques
  1. The researcher is in a position of authority
  2. Survey methods treat people as isolated and in complete control often ignoring power relationships oppressing them
  3. Surveys impose researcers catagories on interviewees
Unstructured Interviews
1. Rapport and sensitivity
  1. Positives
    1. The informality of unstructured interviews is allows for Rapport to be developed
      1. Rapport: A relationship of trust and understanding
    2. Allows for the research of more sensitive topics comfortably for the interviewee
  2. Negative
    1. Rapport should be used ethically and exploitation shouid be avoided
2. Interviewee's view
  1. Positives
    1. Gives interviewee's the ability to speak about what they think are important
    2. More likely to create fresh insights
3. Checking understanding
  1. Positives
    1. If the interviewee does not understand a question it can be clarified
    2. If the interviewer is unsure of what the interviewee means they can ask follow-up questions
4. Flexibility
  1. Positivies
    1. The interviewer isn't restricted to a set of pre-made questions
    2. The researcher can formulate new hypothesis and ideas and test them during the interview
5. Exploring unfamiliar topics
  1. Positives
    1. Unstructured interviews are more useful in exploring unknown topics
    2. Interviewers can find initial ideas about a topic and develop questions from there
6. Practical negatives
  1. Time and sample size
    1. These in depth explorations often take longer to do and can be very costly as they require more interviewers
  2. Training
    1. The large amount of interviewers result an expanded need for training costing more money
  3. Interpersonal skills
7. Representativeness
  1. The smaller sample size means that it is less representativeness
  2. Representativeness is damaged as there are not enough people to accurately represent wider society
8. Reliability
  1. Researchers are able to ask whatever questions they want meaning that it would be difficult to replicate
  2. The participant is free to answer as they see fit
9. Quantification
  1. The questions are open-ended meaning answers can't be pre-coded
10. Validity
  1. Critics argue that interaction between interviewer and interviewee damage validity
  2. However they typically produce valid data

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Interviews: Positives and Negatives

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	Created by Ronnie Barter about 6 years ago