TYPES, ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INTERVIEW AS DATA COLLECTION TOOL IN RESEARCH

Interview is a verbal interaction between an interviewer and an interviewee (respondent) designed to list information, news, opinion and feeling they have on their own.

Interviews vary in purpose, nature and scope. They may be conducted for guidance, therapeutic or research purposes. They maybe confined to one individual or extended to several people.

TYPES, ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INTERVIEW AS DATA COLLECTION TOOL IN RESEARCH

The following discussions describe several types of interview.

Structured Interview

Structured interview involves tight control over the format of questions and answers. It is like a questionnaire which is administered face to face with a respondent.

The researcher has a predetermined list of questions. Each respondent is faced with identical questions.

The choice of alternative answers is restricted to a predetermined list. This type of interview is rigidly standardized and formal.

Structured interviews are often associated with social surveys where researchers are trying to collect large volumes of data from a wide range of respondents.

Semi-Structured Interview

In semi-structures interview, the interviewer also has a clear list of issues to be addressed and questions to be answered.

There is some flexibility in the order of the topics. In this type of interviewee is given chance to develop his ideas and speak more widely on the issues raised by the researcher.

The answers are open-ended and more emphasis is on the interviewee elaborating points of interest.

Unstructured Interview

In case of unstructured interview, emphasis is placed on the interviewee’s thoughts.

The role of the researcher is to be as unintuitive as possible. The researcher introduces a theme or topic and then letting the interviewee develop his or her ideas and pursue his or her train of thought.

Allowing interviewees to speak their minds is a better way of discovering things about complex issues. It gives opportunity for in depth investigations.

Single Interview

This is a common form of semi structured or unstructured interview.

It involves a meeting between one researcher and one informant. It is easy to arrange this type of interview.

It helps the researcher to locate specific ideas wit specific people. It is also easy to control the situation in the part of the interviewer.

Group Interview

In case of group interview, more than one informant is involved. The numbers involved normally about four to six people. Here you may think that it is difficult to get people together to discuss matters on one occasion and how many voices can contribute to the discussion during any one interview.

But the crucial thing to bear in mind here is that a group interview is not an opportunity for the researcher to questions to a sequence of individuals, taking turns around a table. ‘group’ is crucial here, because it tells us that those present in the interview will interact with one another and that the discussion will operate at the level of the group.

They can present a wide range of information and varied view points.

Interviews techniques have the following advantages:

Insights

The researcher is likely to gain valuable insights based on the depth of the information gathered and the wisdom of “key informants”.

Equipment

Interviews require only simple equipment and build on conversation skills, which researchers already have

Information Priorities

Interviews are a good method for producing data based on the informant’s priorities, opinions, and ideas. Informants have the opportunity to expand their ideas, explain their views and identify what regard as their crucial factors.

Flexibility

Interviews are more flexible as a method of data collection. During adjustments to the line of inquiry can be made.

Validity

Direct contact at the point of the interview means that data can be checked for accuracy and relevance as they are collected.

High response rate

Interviews are generally pre-arranged and scheduled for a convenient time and location. This ensures a relatively high response rate.

Therapeutic

Interviews can be a rewarding experience for the informant, compared with questionnaires, observation, and experiments, there is a more personal element to the method and people end to enjoy the rather rare chance to talk about their ideas at length to a person whose purpose is to listen and note the ideas without being critical.

Depth Information

Interviews are particularly good at producing data that deal with topics in depth and in detail. Subjects can be probed, issues pursued, lines of investigation followed over a relatively long period.

Disadvantages of Interviews as data collection tool in research

Time Consuming

Analysis of data can be difficult and time consuming. Data preparation and analysis is “end loaded” compared with, for instance, questionnaires, which are preceded and where data are ready for analysis once they have collected. The transcribing and coding of interview data is a major task for the researcher which occurs after the data have been collected

Difficulty in data analysis

This method produce non-standard responses. Semi-structured and unstructured interviews produce data that are not pre-coded and have a relatively open format.

Less Reliability

Consistency and objectivity are hard to achieve. The data collected are, to an extent, unique owing to the specific content and the specific individuals involved. This has an adverse effect on reliability.

Interviewer Effect

The identity of the researcher may affect the statements of the interviewee. They may say what they do or what they prefer to do. The two may not tally.

Inhibitions

The tape recorder or video recorder may inhibit the respondent .The interview is an artificial situation where people are speaking and recorded on tape recorder and this can be daunting for certain kinds of people.

Invasion of Privacy

Interviewing can be an invasion of Privacy and may be upsetting for the informants.

Resources

The cost of interviewer’s fine, of travel and of transcription can be relatively high if the informants are geographically widespread.

On the basis of the merits and limitations of the interview techniques it is used in many ways for research and non-research purposes.

This technique was used in common wealth teacher training study to know the traits must essentials for success in teaching. Apart from being an independent data collection tool, it may play an important role in the preparation of questionnaires and check lists which are to be put to extensive use.

The following factors need to be determined in advance of the actual interview

•Purpose and information needed should be clear.

•Which type of interview best suited for the purpose should be decided.

•A clear outline and framework should be systematically prepared.

•Planning should be done for recording responses.Execution of the Interview :

•Rapport should be established.

•Described information should be collected with a stimulating and encouraging discussion.

•Recording device should leased without distracting the interviewee.

Recording and Interpreting Responses :

•It is best to record through tape recorder.

•It the responses is to be noted down, it should be either noted simultaneously or immediately after it.

•Instead of recording responses, sometimes the researcher noted the evaluation directly interpreting the responses.

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