Topic 5 - Structured Interviews and MIC Flashcards

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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6
Q

Reliability

A
  • Easy to standardise and control
  • Easy to recreate and replicate
  • Answers can be compared easily to identify similarities and differences
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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
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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
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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
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10
Q

Methods in Context

A
  • Pawney and Watts (1987)
  • Di Bentley (1987)
  • Fields (1987)
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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

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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
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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
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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
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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
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16
Q

Advantages/Limitations of group interviews

A
  • Creates a safe peer environment
  • Reduces power imbalance
  • Reveals interactions between pupils
  • Influence of peers
  • Cannot standardise questions