Interviews are conducted to gather in-depth information about participants’ thoughts, feelings, and experiences, making them a qualitative research method. Interviews can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured, depending on the level of flexibility in questioning.

How would you like to be interviewed? A two-way exchange that sounds like a conversation with lots of space and time to circle back/ clarify and reiterate, or a one-sided list of questions lobbed your way, like you’re being interrogated?

A structured interview involve usually a fixed question list asked in a specific order.

Strengths	Weaknesses
Ensures consistency across interviews, useful when multiple interviewers need to conduct sessions similarly	May limit the depth of responses, less flexibility for probing or exploration

In a semi-structured interview, certain questions are to be asked, but with a degree of flexibility for follow-up questions and changes in the order of questioning.

Strengths	Weaknesses
Allows for deeper exploration of topics, flexibility in adapting to participants’ responses	Requires skilled interviewers to maintain focus and coherence, may vary in structure between interviews

• A special type of semi-structured interview, a focus group, is where participants interact with each other, facilitated by the interviewer. While it could be a quick way to gather information from multiple participants and foster natural discussion, therein runs the risk of dominance by certain participants. Furthermore, an open discussion may lack confidentiality compared to individual interviews.

An unstructured interview is one that is mostly participant-driven, with the next question determined by the interviewee’s response to the previous one.

Strengths	Weaknesses
Provides a comfortable environment for participants, allows for unexpected insights	Lack of structure may lead to inconsistent data collection, requires skilled interviewers to maintain focus and guide the conversation effectively

Detailed Notes on Research Methods