Topic 5 - Structured Interviews and MIC Flashcards
1
Q
Interviews
A
- Can be face to face or via telephone
- Structured: each interview is conducted in the same way with exactly the same questions, wording, orders and tone
- Unstructured: informal, guided questions. Group interviews are usually unstructured. Includes focus groups
- Semi-structured: have the same set of questions in common but interviewer can probe for more info and ask additional questions
2
Q
Structured interviews
A
- Close ended questions, fixed ser of prepared questions
- Produce mainly quantitative data
- Questions are read out and filled in by trained interviwer
- Involves social interaction
3
Q
Practical issues
A
- Suitable for gathering straightfoward factual info
- Easily quantifiable due to using closed ended questions, suitable for hypothesis testing
- Training interviewers is relatively easy and cheap
- Response rates are usually higher than questionnaires
- Inflexible
- Unsuitable for studying unfamiliar topics where the researcher has little idea what the important issues are
- Snapshots taken at one moment in time: dont capture the dynamic market of social life
4
Q
Ethical issues
A
- Relatively few
- Informed consent
- Right to anonymity and confidentiality
- Social interaction = interviewee may feel pressured into answering questions
- Feminsts: potentially oppressive to women interviewees
5
Q
Theoretical issue
A
- Favoured by positivists
- Produces representative data and generalisable findings
- Reliable, objective and detatched
- Able to test hypothesis and identify cause and effect relationships
- Can establish correlations between variables
6
Q
Reliability
A
- Easy to standardise and control
- Easy to recreate and replicate
- Answers can be compared easily to identify similarities and differences
7
Q
Representativeness
A
- High response rates and sophisticated sampling technique helps improve representativeness
- Can make generalisations
- Downside: those with time or willingness to be interviewed may be untypical
8
Q
Interpretivists
A
- Closed ended questions forces answers from pre set answers so data produced is invalid
- Little freedom for interviewers to explain questions
- People may lie or exaggerate
- Sociologist has to decide in advance what is important; this may coincide with what interviewee thinks is important.
- There’s the risk of imposing researchers ideas or framework on the interviewee = invalid
9
Q
Interviews and interaction
A
- Status difference: affects honesty or willingness to cooperate
- Cultural difference: lead to misunderstandings
- Social desirability: interviewees may give answers that make them appear normal
- Interviewer bias: may ask leading questions, influence wit their tone of voice
10
Q
Methods in Context
A
- Pawney and Watts (1987)
- Di Bentley (1987)
- Fields (1987)
11
Q
Practical Issues
Pawney and Watts
A
Young interviewees may:
- Less articulate/more reluctant
- misunderstand complex questions and so give incorrect answers = invalid data
- Pawney and Watts: young children tend to be more literal minded and often pay attention to unexpected details in the question - training needed; more expensive
12
Q
Reliability and validity
Di Bentley
A
- Structured interviwes = reliable data BUT students are unlikely to respond favourably to them due to formal style
- Di Bentley: overcame this by showing a jokey pic of her and her daughter and maintained a relaxed atmosphere by nodding, smiling and maintaining eye contact
- Personal interview style cannot be standardised
13
Q
Access and response rate
Fields
A
- Hierarchal institutions: the lower down the hierarchy is an interview is the more approvals have to be obtained
- Conducting interviews during lesson time may cause disruption therefore schools may deny access.
- Conducting after school hours = problematic too
- Parental permission is required to interview children: Fields - study of pupil experience of sex and health educationin schools had a high refusal rate of 29% mainly due to parents withdrawing consent
14
Q
Interviewer as ‘teacher in disguise’
A
- Power and status inequalities can affect outcome: influence and distort data
- Interviewees may see it as their interest to lie, exaggerate, conceal info or seek to please = less self confident in their responses
- If pupil see the interviewer as a teacher in disguise they will seek to gain the approval of the ‘teacher’ and give untrue but socially acceptable answers
- If a question is repeated pupils are likely to rethink their answer as being wrong and so change it
- WC parents may see the interviewer as being of high status - find questions patronising/intrusive
15
Q
What are some ways of improving validity?
A
- Use open ended questions
- Not interupt answers
- Allow thinking time
- Avoid asking leading questions
- Avoid repeating questions as it makes them change their answer