A topic in research methodology
Interviewing covers a family of research techniques that admit considerable variation. For example, interviews may be planned with different degrees of pre-determined structure.
"…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…, 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 indicate that] 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
Accordingly, interviews are often labelled in research reports in such terms as:
Such vague descriptors are of limited value, so should be used with more detailed descriptions of the interview protocol followed.
A similar situation occurs with research observations which can be designed with different levels of pre-determined structure.
Source cited:
- Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
My introduction to educational research:
Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
