Structured Interviewing and questionnaires

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Structured Interviewing and questionnaires

• Chapter 4

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What is a Structured Interview?

• Useful tool of quantitative research
• Often used in social surveys
• Involves a standardized interview schedule
• each interviewee gets the same questions, in the
  same way, in the same order
• Involves closed, pre-coded, or fixed-choice
  questions
• Minimizes variation between interviews

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Advantages of Structured Interviewing

• 1. Reduces error due to interviewer variability
• differences in responses are the result of true
  variation, not inconsistencies in the conduct of
  interviews
• potential sources of error are reduced by
  standardization (question wording, memory,
  misunderstanding)

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• reduces intra-interviewer and inter-interviewer
  variability
• provides greater validity of data?

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• 2. Accuracy and ease of data processing
• closed-ended, pre-coded, or fixed-choice
  questions (limited choice of possible answers)
• interviewer does not interrupt responses before
  recording them
• standardized coding frame reduces variability in
  coding procedure
• reduces intra-coder and inter-coder variability

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Telephone Interviewing

• Quicker and cheaper
• no travel required
• Easier to monitor/evaluate
• Reduces interviewer effect
• no non-verbal cues

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• Problems
• some people do not own a telephone, are not
  contactable, or are ex-directory
• limited time and rapport
• interviewer cannot respond to non-verbal signs of
  confusion
• less satisfying experience for interviewee

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Keys to Conducting Structured Interviews

• 1. Knowing your way around the schedule
• 2. Introducing the research
• spoken or written rationale
• identify yourself, your employer, purposes of
  research, and procedure of interview
• ethical issues (anonymity, confidentiality, right
  to withdraw)
• opportunity for interviewee to ask questions

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• 3. Building rapport
• can be difficult if there is limited
• time and little opportunity
• for discussion (closed questions)
• 4. Asking the questions
• keep to the schedule even small variations in
  wording can affect responses

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• 5. Recording the answers
• write exact words used by interviewee, or use
  fixed-choice questions
• 6. Giving clear instructions
• some questions are not relevant to every
  interviewee
• filter questions help interviewer navigate the
  schedule

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• 7. Ordering the questions
• every interviewee must get questions in the same
  order
• general questions before specific questions
• earlier questions may affect salience of later
  ones
• first questions should be directly related to the
  topic
• potentially embarrassing or sensitive questions
  towards the end

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• 8. Probing
• when respondent does not understand question or
  gives insufficient answer
• non-directive probes
• Mmm
• Can you say a bit more about that?
• repeat fixed-choice alternatives

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• 9. Prompting
• interviewer suggests possible answers
• show cards
• 10. Leaving the interview
• thank the interviewee
• debriefing should be minimal

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• 11. Training and supervision
• if researcher hires interviewer(s)
• ensure that interviewers know the schedule and
  follow standardized procedures
• assessment examine completed forms, tape-record
  a sample of interviews, call-backs to respondents
  

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What is a Self-administered Questionnaire?

• No interviewer present
• Respondent writes answers on form
• Returned to researcher or deposited for
  collection
• Usually postal questionnaires
• Can be distributed in person or by e-mail

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• How do questionnaires differ from structured
  interviews?
• What are the advantages of questionnaires
  compared to structured interviews?
• What are the disadvantages?

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Diaries as a Form of Questionnaire

• Here diary refers to researcher-driven diaries
  (Elliot, 1997)
• An alternative to structured observation and
  ethnography
• May be structured or free-text (Corti, 1993)

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Structured Diaries

• Closed entries
• like a questionnaire
• Time-use diary
• records amount of time spent on different
  activities
• Reduces error due to memory problems

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Examples of Free-Text Diaries

• Coxon (1994)
• free-text diaries about sexual behaviour
• provided more detail and context than
  questionnaires
• showed time sequence of events and practices
• helpful for sensitive or personal issues

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• Crook Lightfoot (2002)
• time-use diaries about students activities
• showed amount of time spent in different types of
  study
• free-text sections were difficult to code

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• What are some advantages and disadvantages of
  diaries as a form of questionnaire?

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Problems with Structured Interviewing,
Questionnaires and Diaries

• Characteristics of interviewers
• gender, age, ethnicity, class (etc.) can affect
  rapport
• can evoke socially
• desirable responses

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• Response sets - people may respond in consistent
  but irrelevant ways
• 1. Acquiescence (agreeing or disagreeing on all
  questions)
• 2. Social desirability (interviewees reflect on
  the way their answers might be perceived)

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Problems with Structured Interviewing

• The Issue of Meaning
• interpretivist critique
• interviewer and respondent may not attribute the
  same meanings to concepts
• the meaning of questions is not pre-given but
  rather constructed in the interview
• interviewer and interviewee negotiate shared
  meanings the interview as a social encounter

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• The feminist critique (Oakley, 1981)
• structured interview epitomizes the imbalance of
  power between researcher and informant
• interviewer extracts information from passive
  respondent and gives nothing in return
• researcher should seek non-hierarchical
  relationship based on reciprocity and empathy

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• researchers values and personal involvement are
  a strength, not a weakness
• political empowerment of research participants