POLS 3180 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Unstructured Interview, Structured Interview, Deeper Understanding
11 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Qualitative interviews are used for variety of reasons: To acquire a deeper understanding than what is possible in closed-ended surveys. To understand the motivations of leaders and policy-makers. To reconstruct history by oral account of witnesses. Likely to have time for few questions. Voluntary and informed participation should be emphasized. Might perceive researcher as authority or government spy". Set questions, question ordering, and question wording. Variation in questions, question ordering, and wording. Most common is to strike a middle ground: the semi-structured interview. Determining which option to choose requires balancing considerations regarding reactivity, expected length, response rate, cost. From the perspective of collecting as much data as possible, longer interviews always seem better. Yet there are dangers to long interviews: Decrease in quality of answers as interview progresses. As always, start with research question to determine the information you aim to extract. Even mostly inductive research requires careful planning, in order to ensure
