Unstructured interviews

Unstructured Interviews

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Unstructured interviews

Advantages

  • In-depth conversations covering broad topics
  • Useful if covering sensitive topics such as abuse
  • Puts the interviewee at ease, useful if studying children
  • Is good for the interpretivists
  • Researcher can clarify on answers if they are unclear

Disadvantages

  • May go off topic
  • Is more expensive and time consuming
  • Hard to compare with other interviews
  • Positivists are against this method
  • May be untruthful or forgetful of events - researcher bias/influence

Evaluation

This style of research is particularly good for the interpretivists, and is good for covering sensitive topics and having an in-depth understanding of the person. However, this method is time-consuming, costly and is hard to compare with other interviews as the answers may go off topic and each discussion will vary. Therefore, I think this method is good for a small sample of people, specifically for sensitive topics.

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