When conducting qualitative research, interviews are the most commonly utilized data collection tool. Interviews are defined by Wethington and McDarby (2015) as oral communication between the interviewer and the interviewee. According to Marshall et al. (2013), there can be two or more people in an interview. The interviewer asks questions, and the interviewee responds to them. Interviews do provide a means of understanding people's experiences (Grossoehme, 2014). In other words, interviews allow researchers to learn about the respondents' perspectives. According to Spradley (2016), interviews provide the opportunity to obtain the acknowledged reality of culture in study. According to Frels and Onwuegbuzie (2013), interviews are premised on the fact that the viewpoints of other people in invaluable and thus cannot be assumed or taken for granted.
It suffices to mention that interviews construct more than just narrative concerning the social world. Hawkins et al. (2017) reiterates that interviews are geared towards developing the primary issues for generating data that is authentic. Further, interviews provide a realistic insight into the life experiences of other people (Robinson, 2014). There are two types of interviews which include structured and semi-structured interviews (Flick, 2013). Structured interviews are considered to be restrictive. Semi-structured interviews are preferred because it gives a respondent to express his/her personal opinion, beliefs, experiences, attitudes, and feelings among other factors (Irvine et al., 2013). It is imperative to point out that semi-structured are very flexible and the interviewer can ask questions in a manner that does not offend the interviewee (Brinkmann, 2014). Researcher uses semi-structured interviews to elicit responses that give a holistic understanding of the respondent’s situation (Malterud et al., 2016). Furthermore, semi-structured interviews are applied in exploring areas of interest for further investigation.
Reference List
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Flick, U., 2013. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. SAGE.
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Wethington, E., McDarby, M.L., 2015. Interview Methods (Structured, Semistructured, Unstructured), in: The Encyclopedia of Adulthood and Aging. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. doi:10.1002/9781118521373.wbeaa318
