Instead, the interview can proceed more spontaneously, based on the participant’s previous answers. The questions and the order in which they are asked are not set. The answers you receive can help guide your future research.Īn unstructured interview is the most flexible type of interview. Your research question is exploratory in nature.Overall, spontaneous questions are much more difficult than they may seem. It’s easier than you think to accidentally ask a leading question when coming up with questions on the fly. Semi-structured interviews may be a good fit for your research if: However, if the questions differ substantially between participants, it can be challenging to look for patterns, lessening the generalizability and validity of your results. For this reason, they are often considered “the best of both worlds.” Semi-structured interviews are often open-ended, allowing for flexibility, but follow a predetermined thematic framework, giving a sense of order. While the interviewer has a general plan for what they want to ask, the questions do not have to follow a particular phrasing or order. Semi-structured interviews are a blend of structured and unstructured interviews. Your research question depends on holding environmental conditions between participants constant.Structured interviews are a bit more straightforward to analyze because of their closed-ended nature, and can be a doable undertaking for an individual. This will help you formulate your questions most effectively. You feel very comfortable with your topic.Structured interviews may be a good fit for your research if: However, structured interviews can be overly formal, as well as limited in scope and flexibility. This can mitigate research biases and lead to higher reliability and validity. The types of questions asked make structured interviews a predominantly quantitative tool.Īsking set questions in a set order can help you see patterns among responses, and it allows you to easily compare responses between participants while keeping other factors constant. While open-ended structured interviews exist, they are much less common. They are often closed-ended, featuring dichotomous (yes/no) or multiple-choice questions. Structured interviews have predetermined questions in a set order.
Frequently asked questions about types of interviews.Advantages and disadvantages of interviews.
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