Semi-structured interviews are they fit for purpose?

And what is the difference between structured and semi-structured interviews?

There are many occurrences and different types of interviews within societal life. The television interview with a politician, media or music personality, the interview with the police officer, or the job or appraisal interviews, right through to your friends grilling you about the latest boyfriend or girlfriend, or that recent trip to Hawaii.

And not forgetting the person that phones you up asking if they can complete a survey about your buying habits, or the individual that stops you on the street with a clipboard in their hand.

But what information are the interviewers trying to gain?  Well, that can be anything from your beliefs about any subject, your values, your concerns, your buying preferences, your behaviours or even some historical information that is pertinent to you.

However, of those examples listed above some collect the information through a semi-structured interview, whereas others are using a structured interview style

To exemplify, putting aside the objective of the interview, the police, job and appraisal interviews could be considered as being semi-structured in style.

The person that phones you, or stops you on the street with the clipboard, would normally be considered as structured as they are trying to elicit specific answers to specific questions.

So what is a semi-structured interview?

The semi-structured interview is the interview style most commonly used in social research, as well as for the most part everyday society.

The semi-structured interview which is also sometimes labelled as a Qualitative interview, enables the interviewer flexibility to ask a set of pre-determined questions in any sequence, but also explore any topics raised because of those questions with the participant (the interviewee).

The questions that are asked are considered open-ended, and invite the participant to discuss subjects that may not always be within the primary objective of the interview.

The questions within a semi-structured interview could also be described as generalised, again facilitating the participant to consider and then explain their answer.

It is through these answers, that the social researcher is gathering the data required, however, the volume and the possible meanings or definitions that can be attached to words,  or concepts, could be considered as an obstruction, to observing the same levels of validity and reliability measures as a standardised interview.

What is a structured interview?

Well, again it is an interview style, that is designed to gain information from the participant and is most commonly associated with survey or Quantitative research.

However, unlike the semi-structured interview, the questions are normally closed or closed-ended, pre-coded or fixed-choice questions.  (Fixed-choice the participants are provided with a list from which they can select the most appropriate answer to the question).

By asking the participants closed questions or providing the participants with a selection of answers, the researchers can be observed as attempting to standardise the data collected.  This can also facilitate the questions being asked by multiple researchers, therefore gaining a greater number of participant answers, and therefore increasing the data collected.

The participant will be given the same worded question or given the same stimulus as every other participant, and this data when collected could be considered a snapshot of a particular time.

This standardisation could also be observed as an effort to reduce the differences between the participant’s answers, and therefore reduce the influence any interviewer may have upon the answers provided.

The standardisation of the questions and the possible answers could be observed as an exercise in increasing the reliability and validity measures of any structured interview, However, this impedes the interviewer’s opportunities to explore any answers provided

What are the differences, and which one is better?

Before, answering that question about the differences, a few points should be considered, for both the semi-structured and the structured interviews alike.  Careful consideration of how the questions are worded should be given, as this could impact the answers given.

Also worth considering, is that when humans communicate, we work on the basis that many of us have shared meanings of words, concepts and beliefs, and therefore where these vary, these common misunderstandings can also impact the answers given.

The Structured interview contains closed questions, whereas the semi-structured interview used generalised or open-ended questions.

The semi-structured interviews could be considered as enabling the interviewer a greater amount of flexibility in the sequence of the questions, and the opportunities to explore those answers, whereas the structured interviews the questions should be asked in order.

In many structured interviews, the participant is provided with a selection of answers from which they can select, whereas the semi-structured interviewer has no such constraint and as has been suggested has the opportunity to explore any answers given.

Within the semi-structured interview, there is more interest in what the participant is saying, whereas, within the structured interview, the priority is towards gaining a snapshot of the participants in regards to the objective of the interview.

It should also be considered that the semi-structured interviews will not because of their Qualitative style facilitate the number of participants as would be considered the norm within the structured interviews, and this will impact on the volume and type of data collected.

However, both these interview strategies could be considered as having weaknesses that may need to be accounted for.

 

 

The semi-structured interviews require transcripts of the interview to be created, and the analysis of these can be very labour and time intensive.

The semi-structured or Qualitative interviews may take longer and occur more than once, however, this could be observed as enabling the participant to provide greater information but also possibly encourage the interviewer to lead the participant.

The structured interviews although normally providing the participants with suggested answers, could be observed as providing greater measures of reliability and validity, therefore as has been suggested adding some legitimacy to the snapshot taken.  Whereas the semi-structured interviews, because of the information provided may not be able to satisfy those constraints.

In both interview strategies, interviewer bias should be considered when asking the questions and their interactions with the participants.

Bias can take many forms, and should be considered from the construction of the questions, to how they are asked, to how the interviewer responds to those answers.

 In Conclusion

Semi-structured interviews are they fit for purpose?

Well like all of these types of things, the tool fits the job.  in the same way, a cross screwdriver, will not work on a flat-head screw.

Semi-structured interviews are one of the most appropriate, and well-used tools for collecting Qualitative information

So are Semi-structured fit for purpose, well depending on how you compose the questions, and the objective of the interviews, they could be considered as the most appropriate tool to collect qualitative information.

 

 

Bibliography

 

Gray, D. (2018) Doing research in the real world. 4th edition. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Bryman, A. (2008) Social research methods. 3rd ed. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.