Unstructured Interviews Essay

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Unstructured Interviews Unstructured interviews are the opposite to structured interviews. Unstructured interviews are more like an everyday conversation. They tend to be more informal, open ended, flexible and free flowing. Questions are not pre-set, although there are usually certain topics that the researchers wish to cover. This gives the interview some structure and direction. An unstructured interview is “an interview without any set format but in which the interviewer may have some key questions formulated in advance. Unstructured interviews allow questions based on an interviewee's responses and proceeds like a friendly, non-threatening conversation. However, because each interviewee is asked a different series of questions, this style can lack the reliability and precision of a structured interview. Unstructured interviews are also called non-directive interview.” The definitions of unstructured interview are various. Minichiello (1990) defines unstructured interviews as interviews in which neither the question nor the answer categories are predetermined. They rely on social interaction between the researcher and informant to extract information. Unstructured interview technique was originated in anthropology and sociology as a method to bring out people’s social realities. Definitions of unstructured interviews change. Minichiello (1990) defined unstructured interview as interviews in which neither the question nor the answer categories are predetermined. They rely on social interaction between the researcher and informant to bring out information. Punch (1998) described unstructured interviews as a way to understand the complex behaviour of people without invading their space, which might limit the field of inquiry. Patton (1990) regarded unstructured interview a natural extension of participant observation. He defined that the unstructured
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