Methods in context - interviews

Interviews

Preferred by positivists as they see interviews as revealing the attitudes and behaviour of people in everyday life.

Interpretivists claim interviews are artificial situations and only reveal what the interviewee wants the interviewer to know.

Interviewer bias - answers influenced/distorted by the presence, appearance or behaviour of the interviewer.

Issues

• semi-structured and unstructured interviews are more time consuming, labour intensive and costly than structured interviews
• language development must be taken into account
• by building rapport, sensitive topics may be discussed…