Interviews

For example, observing that a teenager spends time on social media does not tell a researcher how that teenager feels about it. An interview can explore their enjoyment, worries and reasons for using it. However, the answers are the participant’s account, not independent proof of what happened.

The two interview types you need to distinguish are structured and unstructured. The main difference is how much freedom the interviewer has to change the questions.

Structured interviews: the same questions for everyone

In a structured interview, the researcher prepares an interview schedule: a list of questions asked in the same wording and order to every participant. The interviewer follows this schedule rather than adding questions in response to interesting answers. Responses can be written down or recorded.

Suppose a psychologist wants to compare students’ experiences of social media. Each student could be asked, ‘Do you use social media every day?’ followed by ‘How does using social media make you feel?’ The first question offers a limited response; the second allows an answer in the student’s own words. Both can belong to a structured interview because they are prepared in advance and asked consistently.

Closed questions can produce quantitative data, such as the number answering ‘yes’. Open questions can produce qualitative data, such as descriptions of feeling connected to friends. Structure does not mean that every answer must be numerical.

Why use a structured interview?

Structured interviews suit research objectives that involve comparing participants’ responses to the same questions. Because everyone is asked the same things, differences in their answers are less likely to result from different question wording or order.

This standardised procedure is also easier for another researcher to replicate, supporting reliability: consistency when a method is repeated under comparable conditions. Fixed-response answers are particularly straightforward to count and compare. Open answers may still require substantial interpretation.

The main limitation is inflexibility. If a student mentions an unexpected reason for feeling anxious, the interviewer cannot freely explore it while keeping to the fixed schedule. The research may therefore miss an important part of the student’s experience, limiting validity: how well the method captures what the researcher intended to investigate. Including prepared open questions allows some detail, but does not provide the freedom of an unstructured interview.

Unstructured interviews: following the participant’s account

An unstructured interview has a research topic but no fixed sequence of questions that must be followed. It develops more like a guided conversation, with the interviewer choosing follow-up questions based on the participant’s answers.

For example, a researcher might begin, ‘Tell me about your experience of using social media.’ If the participant mentions pressure to reply quickly, the researcher could ask, ‘What happens when you cannot reply?’ Another participant might discuss friendships, leading to different follow-up questions.

This approach produces rich qualitative data. Participants can explain their experiences in their own words and raise issues the researcher had not anticipated. An unstructured interview is therefore especially useful when the objective is to explore individual experiences, meanings or reasons in depth, including detailed investigation within a case study.

Depth brings benefits and difficulties

The interviewer can ask a participant to explain an unclear answer or expand on an important point. This can improve validity because the researcher gains a fuller, more accurate understanding of what the participant means. A comfortable conversational atmosphere may also help participants speak openly, although this is not guaranteed, especially with sensitive topics.

The flexibility makes replication harder. Different participants receive different follow-up questions, and another interviewer might take the conversation in a different direction. Unstructured interviews therefore tend to have lower reliability than structured interviews, and responses are harder to compare directly.

They also take time to conduct and analyse. Long accounts must be recorded, read or listened to, and interpreted carefully. Interviewers need skill to encourage useful detail without steering participants towards a preferred answer.

Limitations shared by both interview types

Both types depend on participants being willing and able to give accurate accounts. Social desirability bias occurs when someone gives an answer that makes them look good rather than a truthful one. A student might understate their social media use because they think the interviewer would disapprove. This reduces validity.

An interviewer effect occurs when the interviewer’s characteristics or behaviour influence answers. For example, an approving tone or nod might encourage a participant to continue expressing a particular view. A fixed question schedule reduces variation in questioning, but does not remove every influence of the interviewer’s presence.

Participants may also struggle to remember events or express their experiences clearly. Detailed accounts from a few individuals should not automatically be generalised to everyone; whether findings apply more widely also depends on the sample.

The choice is therefore a trade-off. Structured interviews prioritise consistency and comparison; unstructured interviews prioritise flexibility and depth. The better choice depends on what the psychologist wants to find out.