This article gives a description of the methods of interviewing, focus groups, questionnaires and participant observation.

INTERVIEWING

In social research there are many types of interview. The most common of these are unstructured, semi-structured and structured interviews.

1. Unstructured interviews

Unstructured or in-depth interviews are sometimes called life history interviews. This is because they are the favoured approach for life history research. In this type of interview, the researcher attempts to achieve a holistic understanding of the interviewees’ point of view or situation.

For example, if you want to find out about a Polish man’s experiences of a concentration camp during the war, you’re delving into his life history. Because you are unsure of what has happened in his life, you want to enable him to talk freely and ask as few questions as possible. It is for this reason that this type of interview is called unstructured

– the participant is free to talk about what he or she deems important, with little directional influence from the researcher. This type of interview can only be used for qualitative research.

As the researcher tries to ask as few questions as possible, people often assume that this type of interviewing is the easiest. However, this is not necessarily the case. Researchers have to be able to establish rapport with the participant

– they have to be trusted if someone is to reveal intimate life information. This can be difficult and takes tact, diplomacy and perseverance. Also, some people find it very difficult to remain quiet while another person talks, sometimes for hours on end. Researchers need to remain alert, recognising important information and probing for more detail. They need to know how to tactfully steer someone back from totally irrelevant digressions. Also, it is important to realise that unstructured interviewing can produce a great deal of data which can be difficult to analyse.

2. Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviewing is perhaps the most common type of interview used in qualitative social research. In this type of interview, the researcher wants to know specific information which can be compared and contrasted with information gained in other interviews. To do this, the same questions need to be asked in each inter- view. However, the researcher also wants the interview to remain flexible so that other important information can still arise.

For this type of interview, the researcher produces an interview schedule. This may be a list of specific questions or a list of topics to be discussed. This is taken to each interview to ensure continuity. In some research, such as a grounded theory study, the schedule is updated and revised after each interview to include more topics which have arisen as a result of the previous interview.

3. Structured interviews

Structured interviews are used frequently in market research. Have you ever been stopped in the street and asked about washing powder or which magazines you read? Or have you been invited into a hall to taste cider or smell washing-up liquid? The interviewer asks you a series of questions and ticks boxes with your response. This research method is highly structured – hence the name. Structured interviews are used in quantitative research and can be conducted face-to-face or over the telephone, sometimes with the aid of lap-top computers.

FOCUS GROUPS

Focus groups may be called discussion groups or group interviews. A number of people are asked to come together in a group to discuss a certain issue. For example, in market research this could be a discussion centred on new packaging for a breakfast cereal, or in social research this could be to discuss adults’ experiences of school.

1. ADVANTAGES of FOCUS GROUPS

1. Can receive a wide range of responses during one meeting.
2. Participants can ask questions of each other, lessoning impact of researcher bias.
3. Helps people to remember issues they might otherwise have forgotten.
4. Helps participants to overcome inhibitions, especially if they know other people in the group. The group effect is a useful resource in data analysis. Participant interaction is useful to analyse.

2. DISADVANTAGES of FOCUS GROUPS

1. Some people may be uncomfortable in a group setting and nervous about speaking in front of others.
2. Not everyone may contribute. Other people may contaminate an individual’s views.
3. Some researchers may find it difficult or intimidating to moderate a focus group.
4. Venues and equipment can be expensive.
5. Difficult to extract individual views during the analysis.

The discussion is led by a moderator or facilitator who introduces the topic, asks specific questions, controls digressions and stops break-away conversations. She makes sure that no one person dominates the discussion whilst trying to ensure that each of the participants makes a contribution. Focus groups may be video-recorded or tape-recorded.

QUESTIONNAIRES

There are three basic types of questionnaire – closedended, open-ended or a combination of both.

1. Closed-ended questionnaires

Closed-ended questionnaires are probably the type with which you are most familiar. Most people have experience of lengthy consumer surveys which ask about your shopping habits and promise entry into a prize draw. This type of questionnaire is used to generate statistics in quantitative research. As these questionnaires follow a set format, and as most can be scanned straight into a computer for ease of analysis, greater numbers can be produced.

2. Open-ended questionnaires

Open-ended questionnaires are used in qualitative research, although some researchers will quantify the answers during the analysis stage. The questionnaire does not contain boxes to tick, but instead leaves a blank section for the respondent to write in an answer. Whereas closed-ended questionnaires might be used to find out how many people use a service, open-ended questionnaires might be used to find out what people think about a service. As there are no standard answers to these questions, data analysis is more complex. Also, as it is opinions which are sought rather than numbers, fewer questionnaires need to be distributed.

3. Combination of both

Many researchers tend to use a combination of both open and closed questions. That way, it is possible to find out how many people use a service and what they think about that service on the same form. Many questionnaires begin with a series of closed questions, with boxes to tick or scales to rank, and then finish with a section of openquestions for more detailed response.

Recently, some market research companies have started to distribute their questionnaires via the internet. This suggests that soon there might be a new category of questionnaire – the interactive questionnaire, which allows respondents to work with the researcher in both the development and completion of the questionnaire.

PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION

There are two main ways in which researchers observe – direct observation and participant observation. Direct observation tends to be used in areas such as health and psychology. It involves the observation of a ‘subject’ in a certain situation and often uses technology such as video cameras or one-way mirrors. For example, the interaction of mother, father and child in a specially prepared play room may be watched by psychologists through a oneway mirror in an attempt to understand more about family relationships. In participant observation, however, the researcher becomes much more involved in the lives of the people being observed.

Participant observation can be viewed as both a method and a methodology. It is popular amongst anthropologists and sociologists who wish to study and understand another community, culture or context. They do this by immersing themselves within that culture. This may take months or years, as they need to build up a lasting and trusting relationship with those people being studied. Through participation within their chosen culture and through careful observation, they hope to gain a deeper understanding into the behaviour, motivation and attitudes of the people under study. Participant observation, as a research method, received bad press when a number of researchers became covert participant observers; entering organisations and participating in their activities without anyone knowing that they were conducting research. Overt participant observation, where everyone knows who the researcher is and what she is doing, however, can be a valuable and rewarding method for qualitative inquiry.