Interviews

There are a number of species of interview each with their own advantages and disadvantages.  I’ll consider the main ones only:

Informal interviews

The interviewer has an aim in mind at the outset but is willing to be flexible about getting answers.  The interviewer tries not to direct the interviewee but instead listens and lets the interview take its natural course.

Clinical interview

These were made popular by Freud and in particular Piaget and are a type of informal interview.  Piaget for example would read ‘moral stories’ to a child and start off by asking the same questions to all the children, for example ‘who is the naughtier boy in the stories.’  However, follow up questions would be informal and vary from child to child. 

Structured or formal interviews

These follow a set pattern with the interviewer having prepared a set of questions in advance that are asked in a particular order.

Note: sometimes the questions may be open and allow the interviewee to respond how they like, for example ‘how did you feel when Freddie ate your pet hamster?’  Or they can be closed and allow only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response.  For example ‘were you upset when Freddie ate your pet hamster?’ 

Limitation of interviews in general:

Social desirability bias

We all like to create a favourable impression.  When faced with an interviewer we are less likely to be honest than when filling out an anonymous questionnaire.  For example people being questioned about their love life are likely to exaggerate in face to face interviews. 

Lie scales can be introduced to assess how honest answers may be.  For example if people were being questioned about their childhood a ‘lie question’ might be; ‘As a child did you always do as you were told first time and without moaning?’  A response of ‘yes’ would be assumed to be a fib and indicate that perhaps the interviewees answers may not be reliable.

Questionnaires

We all know what they are and have all filled lots of them in.  Basically a questionnaire is a list of written questions that is able to gather lots of relevant information relatively quickly and cheaply. 

The biggest problem is wording of the questions.  Again there is the issue of ‘open’ or ‘closed’, but more importantly, as we saw in EWT, the issue of leading questions.  These are a favourite of politicians or of newspapers that want to find support or criticism of a particular issue.  For example imagine you wanted to find out if people wanted more money spent on the NHS, a relatively neutral question might be

‘Should more money be spent on the NHS?’

The Mirror (presumably wanting a ‘yes’ response might get their pollsters to ask:

‘Should extra money be provided to the NHS to take care of Britain’s sick and elderly?’

Whereas the Telegraph (being very stereotypical here) may get their pollsters to ask:

‘Would you be happy to pay more taxes to fund bureaucracy in the NHS?’

Rather extreme examples admittedly, real surveys carried out by experienced pollsters would be far more subtle, but you get the idea!

Sir Humphrey explains how to get the answers you want

It is always a good idea to test your questionnaire in a pilot study first to make sure it doesn’t take hours to complete and that participants understand the questions.  Feedback like this may provide ideas for follow up questions to be asked in the real study.

Typical questions on Research Methods

Describe two disadvantages of investigations using correlational analysis (2 + 2 marks)

Identify the research method used in this study and explain one advantage and one disadvantage of this method.                                                                  (2 + 2 marks)

Give one advantage of using a questionnaire in this study.             (2 marks)

Following the survey it was decided to carry out an observational study into under-age drinking.  Outline procedures for carrying out such an observation. (6 marks)