Political Science 3324F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Unstructured Interview, Focus Group, Symbolic Interactionism
14 Nov 2016
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Lecture 7 / chapter 11 interviewing in qualitative research. Interview is likely most widely used method in qualitative research. Variety of interviews includes oral history interviews, focus groups, life history interviews. Quantitative research has a highly structured approach to maximize reliability and validity. Qualitative is less structured, more open-ended for greater freedom. Greater interest in intervie(cid:449)ee(cid:859)s pe(cid:396)spe(cid:272)ti(cid:448)es a(cid:374)d (cid:272)o(cid:374)(cid:272)e(cid:396)(cid:374)s i(cid:374) (cid:395)ualitati(cid:448)e (cid:396)esea(cid:396)(cid:272)h as opposed to research agenda driven interviews. Departing from interview schedule is even encouraged in qualitative vs. inflexible, structured interviews. Researcher wants rich, detailed answers as opposed to structured interviews. Qualitative research may interview subject more than once. Unstructured interview: researcher uses at most a memory aid; interviewee is allowed to answer freely and interviewer can pursue points with follow up questions (conversation) Semi-structured interview: researcher has a list of questions but still gives interviewee leeway in how they can reply, questions may not follow an order or some may be skipped, wording may vary.
