Pros And Cons Of Interviewing As a Research Method

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What are the pros and cons of interviewing as a research method? This essay will focus on interviewing as a research method. It will analyse the strengths and the limitations of using qualitative interviews as a research method. It will begin with a brief description of what interviews are and the different types of interviews and how they can be used as a research method. Secondly it will go onto explaining different approaches to interviews which have specific strengths and limitations. Next, it will explain some advantages and disadvantages of using interviews as a research method with consideration to different types of interviews. This will be done by explaining ways in which the researcher may find interviewing useful and showing barriers which can prevent this method from being useful to researchers. The final aspects of this essay will sum up the pros and cons of using interviews as a research method. Gillham 2000 said that interview is a conversation which aims to find answers to particular questions. It involves a discussion between two or more people where one plays the role of an interviewer and the other being the interviewee. It is a qualitative method of research which generally produces rich data. It may also take the quantitative approach. He also believed that different interviews are used for different purposes. Research through interview attains information and understanding of issues which are relevant to specific questions of a research project. Arkskey 1999 et al.... believed that one of the great strengths of using interviews for research is that it takes many different approaches. Structured interviews are when a researcher asks questions which are set in advance. A disadvantage to this will be that the researchers may be biased as they will already have a set of questions therefore likely to gain expected answers. Structured
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