Revision Note: Interviews

Interviews are generally considered as more of an interpretivist method, although sociologists taking a more positivistic and quantitative approach do also use them. The more positivist inclined sociologist would be likely though to favour a structured interview, where all interviewees were asked the same questions, in the same order, thus making it more reliable and easier to record and analyse the results. Sociologists taking a more interpretivist approach would be likely to rely more on the unstructured interview or a partly-structured interview. These two forms of interview simply mean that there are few or no fixed questions which have to be asked or asked to all interviewees. This might mean for example, that a researcher interviewing drug users, would ask questions on broad themes, e.g. ‘tell me how you got involved with drugs’, and this could lead to all sorts of supplementary questions. Indeed, the supplementary questions might vary between different respondents.

This sort of approach makes the interview a very flexible research method; researchers can explore questions that may not have occurred to them before the interview or they can go back and forth between topics, depending on what the respondent says. It also may mean that the researcher is less likely to be imposing their own ideas on the respondents (compare to a questionnaire where the respondent has to answer the questions set by the researcher). Researchers who favour this method argue that this is a more valid form of social research; instead of imposing categories and meaning upon respondents, researchers see how people construct meaning for themselves.

Interviews are supposed to be non-directive; that is, the interviewer should not be guiding the respondent to give particular answers to the questions. This however, is an area of debate; critics of the interview approach (particularly positivists) will argue that interviewers can all too easily allow bias to enter the interview process, by inadvertently encouraging respondents to answer in particular ways.

For example, the information and explanations which an interviewee may give can be significantly affected by factors such as the race, gender, age and social class of the interviewer. This form of distortion is called ‘interviewer effect’. A well known example comes from research conducting by American researcher William Labov in the 1960s; Labov found that young black respondents were far more likely to speak freely when interviewed by a black researcher in an informal setting, whereas when interviewed by a white researcher in a more formal setting, their responses were much briefer and less open. Clearly, the possibility of interviewer effect means that the validity of interviews can be challenged.

However, more interpretivist inclined sociologists and others, including feminists, have argued against such a view. Feminist Ann Oakley for example, has argued that interviews work best when there is a relationship of trust between researcher and interviewee. This can mean that the researcher sympathises with or even takes the side of, the interviewee. Oakley (and more recently, other feminists) has argued that this is not necessarily a bad thing. It can give deeper insight into why people act as they do and enable the researcher to understand how meaning is constructed. Researchers taking this view would in fact argue that the interview provides more, not less, validity.

Focus groups are often mentioned as a form of group interview. They are used frequently in market research and in the media, as well as in more academic research. They are basically a bit like a group interview. They have similar pros and cons to interviews, but one of the more prominent concerns, which is clear to anyone who has seen a focus group discussing an issue on television, is that the issue of non-direction is highly debateable – it is very easy for a focus group facilitator to guide the group down a particular line of thought, or for group members to be swayed by a few dominant characters in the group. Problems of reliability, validity and representativeness therefore remain a key consideration, but the focus group method can be useful when researchers wish to investigate how a particular type or group of people think about some issue or matter.

Advantages of Interviews

• Qualitative method allows concepts to be clarified.
• Lets people express themselves in their own words – avoids imposition problem.
• Takes account of the fact that people are reflexive.
• Is practical and flexible.

Disadvantages

• Possibility of interviewer bias.
• Validity threats.
• Often uses small samples which may not be representative.
• Can be time consuming.
• Social characteristics of interviews – class, race, gender, age, can affect responses.