Topic 5 - Structured Interviews and MIC

Question 1

Interviews

Answer 1

• 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

Question 2

Structured interviews

Answer 2

• 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

Question 3

Practical issues

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

Ethical issues

Answer 4

• Relatively few
• Informed consent
• Right to anonymity and confidentiality
• Social interaction = interviewee may feel pressured into answering questions
• Feminsts: potentially oppressive to women interviewees

Question 5

Theoretical issue

Answer 5

• 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

Question 6

Reliability

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Representativeness

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

Interpretivists

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

Interviews and interaction

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

Methods in Context

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Practical Issues

Pawney and Watts

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Reliability and validity

Di Bentley

Answer 12

• 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

Question 13

Access and response rate

Fields

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

Interviewer as ‘teacher in disguise’

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

What are some ways of improving validity?

Answer 15

• Use open ended questions
• Not interupt answers
• Allow thinking time
• Avoid asking leading questions
• Avoid repeating questions as it makes them change their answer

Question 16

Advantages/Limitations of group interviews

Answer 16

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