Research Methods in Psychology
(Pp 32-44)
Purpose of Interviews
To get someone’s point of view by
asking questions
Interviewing Styles
• Nondirective
• Informal
• Semistructured
• Structured but open-ended
• Structured
Nondirective Interviews
• Conversational where participants talk
about anything they want
• Goal is to help participants understand
themselves (therapy sessions) more than
to gather data for a study
Informal Interviews
• Conversational in nature but researcher
wants to gather data for a study
• Interviewer keeps interview focused on a
general topic
Semistructured Interviews
• Researchers have a specific topic but questions
are not asked in the same way to all participants
• Meant to be flexible and interactive with followup questions common
• Can be done one-to-one or in focus groups
• Some us narratives and/or vignettes
Semistructured Interviews
Advantages
• Provides a rich account of a person’s situation
• Questions can be adapted to probe the context and
meaning
• If relaxed, participants are likely to give detailed
responses
Disadvantages
• Reliability can be poor
• Use of small samples common
• More training required
Focus Groups
Advantages
• A natural setting allows people to express their real opinions
• Hearing others’ responses helps participants think of other points or
clarify their opinions
• Feeling their opinions count, people feel empowered
• Interactions among members provide richness and depth
Disadvantages
• After participation in a focus group, an individual’s attitude may
become more extreme
• Only one topic at a time can be discussed
• Individuals have less time to talk
• Group moderator may unknowingly inject bias
Narrative Interviews
Advantages
• Since narratives allow people to “tell their story”,
these interviews provide a rich form of data
• Narratives provide a window into someone’s life
context
Disadvantage
• Coding (creating categories about important
emerging themes) individual stories from an
entire group may be challenging
Structured but Open-ended
Interviews
• Preset questions asked
• Interviewer still allows participants to
respond any way they wish
Structured Interviews
• Data collected with a predetermined scale
(ie, Likert Scale)
• Most objective, requires less training to
administer and reduces researcher bias
• Lacks the richness of less structured
interviews
Considerations Involved
Before an Interview
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Choice of interviewer(s)
Logistics
Ethical issues
Good questions
Minimize demand characteristics and
researcher bias
• Scheduling details
Considerations Involved
During an Interview
• Create and maintain good relationships
• Be aware of recording process
• Remain empathetic
• Manage sensitive areas
Considerations Involved
an Interview
After
• Participants should feel appreciated, be told
how to obtain results of the study and be
allowed to withdraw data if desired
• Transcribe interview using verbatim
transcription or postmodern transcription
Inductive Content Analysis
(Thematic Analysis)
A process for analyzing interview transcripts
by organizing it into categories according to
important themes that emerge. Coding is
central to organizing raw data into coherent
categories which is hard work and time
consuming.
Coding Process
(Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis)
• Researchers read and reread transcripts
reflecting on what is being said
• Specific themes are identified and named
• Categories are named based on clusters of
themes
• A summary table of the theme categories is
created
One more thing
before the end!
IB Video
http://occ.ibo.org/ibis/occ/home/subjectHome.cfm?subject=psych