Unstructured interviews

Unstructured interviews

1. Advantages

   • Rapport (relationship of trust and understanding) developed between interviewer and interviewee
     • Perhaps higher validity - more like a conversation so people think less about what their saying
       • Interpretivists like this
   • Useful in sensitive topics
   • Interviewer free to ask questions they think are important
     • Explore unfamiliar topics
   • Check understanding of questions
   • Flexibility - no restriction on questions

2. Disadvantages

   • Long time to conduct
   • Relatively small sample so not very representative
   • Unreliable
     • No set questions
     • Positivists would not like this
   • Answers cannot be quantified as answers cannot be pre-coded
     • Less useful for discovering cause and effect relationships
   • May be not valid
     • Socially desired answers may be given
     • Interviewer bias