Interviews

Evaluation

Interviews are high in validity as the researcher/interviewer can build a rapport with the respondent. This build in trust means that the interviewer is likely to receive more truthful and in-depth answers to their questions. In addition to this, the researcher is able to overcome language/literacy barriers which they would not be able to do with a questionnaire. They can overcome the language barrier by having an interviewer that speaks the respondent's native language, and the literacy barrier can be overcome by the interviewer simply reading the questions and writing down the respondent's answers or by using a dictaphone. However, interviews are highly susceptible to interviewer bias as the presence/behaviour of the interviewer can often influence the answers that the respondent gives, thus in turn decreasing the validity. Practicalities are, also, a major disadvantage to using interviews as a research method. Interviews take longer to conduct compared to questionnaires, which means that the researcher cannot quickly obtain the data that they need. Plus, an expert interviewer/researcher is needed to carry out the interview so that the interviewee feels comfortable in being interviewed, and so that a trust can be built. These types of interviewers can be difficult to access.