Advantages and Disadvantages of Structured Interviews

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  • Created by: Phil
  • Created on: 17-05-13 09:30

Advantages and Disadvantages of Structured Interviews

Advantages

  • Standardised questions = a standardised response, all respondents faced with the same questions in the same order
  • Potential to pre-code answers using computers to analyse the data makes it more straightfoward to produce statistical results as well as being able to quote interviews in the study
  • High response rate as new respondents can be accessed if sample size drops
  • The interviewer is present to explain the question to avoid misinterpretation

Disadvantages

  • The interviewer can potentially effect the answers through using tone of voice and body language
  • interview is only as good as the questions it contains if the interviewer or the respondents misinterprets the data then it becomes invalid
  • interviewing people is time consuming and costly to higher interviewers
  • people may change their answers because of 'social desirability bias' since they dont wanna sound bad infront of someone else

Evaluation

structured interviews increase validity but are harder to carry out in bulk

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