Strength and Limitation P.E.T - Structured interviews

Question 1

Practical - Strength

Answer 1

• Cheaper- Structured interviews are cheaper to administer than unstructured interviews as the interviewer requires limited training compared to researchers who carry out unstructured interviews.
• Response rate- The response rate is usually higher than in other survey methods such as postal questionnaires or other self completion questionnaires. This may be because people find it harder to reject a face to face request

Question 2

Practical- limitation

Answer 2

• Like questionnaires they are inflexible, the questions are drawn up in advance and the researcher must stick to them
• Problems of fixed response rate- Fixed response question also suffer from language problems: words may be interpreted differently respondent which reduce the validity and reliability of the findings.
• Those with time/willingness to be interviewed may be untypical which undermines the ability to generalise the research findings.

Question 3

Ethical - Strengths

Answer 3

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Question 4

Ethical- Limitations

Answer 4

• Consent- The researcher will need the consent of the respondent if the data is to be published in the future and the respondent must know they can withdraw all or some of the data if they wish
• Risk of harm- The researcher needs to ensure that non of the questions are worded in a way which might cause more psychological stress than in normal in ordinary life.

Question 5

Theoretical- Strengths

Answer 5

• Representative- Structured interviews are relatively quick to administer which means the sample population reached by this method will be larger than for structured interviews. This means it is possible to make a generalisation from the research findings to the wider population.
• Reliability- Structured interviews are seen as being a highly reliable method of gathering data. This is because the questions have been standardised- every participant is asked the same questions- which makes them objective as there is no research to influence the person’s answers. The questionnaire can be easily replicated by other researchers on other groups of people and data compared. If similar result are found this increases the reliability and validity of the study.

Question 6

Theoretical-limitations

Answer 6

Validity- Critics argue that structured interviews aren’t valid because like questionnaires they paint a fake picture.
-These interviews usually have closed questions so there are limited answers that may not represent the interviewee
-Structure interviews give little freedom for interviewers to make clarifications and help an interviewee who misunderstands the question. Answers can’t be valid if someone doesn’t know what they are being asked.