Educational Research Methods
A site to support teaching and learning...
Degrees of structure in research interviews
“...if one was testing the hypothesis that ‘girls are just as likely to experience bullying as boys’, then one would wish to make sure that the same question was asked in the same way, so that the respondents’ judgements were not influenced by different phrasing of the question, or differently cued by the question sequence. (Asking the question ‘can bullying be verbal, or must it always be physical?’ just before asking ‘have you ever been the victim of bullying?’ could well lead to a different response to the second question.) ... In this situation (an enquiry that is likely to be identified as within ERP1...), a fully structured interview schedule would be appropriate. However, a study with a similar focus but from a more interpretivist perspective would indicate a different type of interview. A study to enquire into ‘how boys and girls construe bullying, and feel about with bullying’ would be situated within ERP2. Here it is more important to uncover in-depth data about how individuals make sense of their experiences than it is to ask a large number of people identical questions. Both types of research question may be important, and be answered through interviewing as a data collection technique, but with different types of interview to collect (or ‘construct’) different types of data.” (Taber, 2013: 275-276)
This is a personal site of Keith S. Taber to support teaching of educational research methods.
(Dr Keith Taber is Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.)
Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
structured /semi-structured / unstructured
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One of the key dimensions which characterise a research interview is the degree of structure in the interview guide that the researcher is asked to follow:
