Interviews
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Lesson Objective
To learn how to conduct interviews in order to collect data
Key Vocabulary
• Structured
• Unstructured
• Demographic
• Sample
• participant
Interview
• An interview can be described as a conversation used to gather
information.
• Interviews can be conducted face to face or over the telephone and
are a useful way to collect information on people’s thoughts, feelings
and attitudes
Advantages and Disadvantages
Pros Cons
Interviews are easy to conduct and all types of people can be included in the The cost of organizing and administering the interview may be
sample. high.
The interviewer has control of the interview and can ask the kind of
The quality of the data may depend on the skills of the
questions that he or she has thought about and wants to get more details
interviewer – the better the interviewer, the better the data.
about.
The structure of the interview can change depending on the needs being The data collected needs to be processed, which might be a
addressed. time-consuming task.
Interviews can capture verbal and non- verbal cues, which helps to get a The number of interviews a researcher can do depends on
more well- rounded understanding of the topic. things such as the cost and ability to process the raw data.
Advantages of face-to-face interviews
Accurate screening - Face to face interviews allow the interviewer to
confirm the correct demographic information of the group they are
sampling
Non-verbal cues - Face to face interviews allow the researcher to
capture additional information in the form of non-verbal cues that
cannot be gathered from online survey
Keep the focus on the interview - Since face-to-face interviews are
controlled by the interviewer, the interviewee can be kept focused
and, on the topic,
Structured Semi-structured Unstructured
A standard set of predetermined The interviewer uses a set of pre- interviewer has no structured or
questions are asked in a specific determined questions, and the pre-determined questions; instead,
order participants answer in their own the interviewer uses broader
words questions to engage the
participants in an open, informal,
and spontaneous discussion.
Respondents select answers from a participants provide information on Unstructured interviews are suited
list of choices the same topics to finding out in-depth information
on participants stories and
experiences
This type of interview is particularly interviews are suitable for collecting
suitable for use in surveys systematical and in-depth
information from a large number of
participants.
On the basis of above table mark 's' 'ss' 'us'
• The interviewer would like to interview a large group of teachers to get
information on what they think are the best types of assessment methods.
He creates the questions he would like to ask.
• The interviewer would like to get feedback on the fitness habits of a group
of 30-yearold men and women. He knows what he wants to ask and what
the answers might be. He decides to email a survey to the list provided by
the local gym.
• The interviewer is doing research on experiences in World War I. Although
the participants have unique stories and experiences to share with the
group, they all have the topic in common