Qualitative Interview (Semi-structured Interview): a Methodological Reflection on Developing and Using a Research Instrument

By

Ruslin

School of Education

University of Sussex

England

Introduction

In this project, I intend to describe how semi-structured interview as one of the research instruments is mostly used in qualitative researches. The main concern of this essay is to reveal a methodological reflection at how this type of interview is applicable to any qualitative research.

Interviews and Researcher’s Positional Perspectives

According to Kvale (1996), interviewing as a research can be characterized into two different perspectives. The first perspective deals with the miner metaphor where knowledge is understood as a buried metal and the interviewer is a miner who unearths the valuable metal. Some miners in this position seek objective facts to be quantified, other seek nuggets of essential meaning. In both conceptions to Kvale (1996), the knowledge is waiting in the subjects’ interior to be uncovered, and therefore uncontaminated by the miner.

The second perspective is dealing with the traveler metaphor in which the interviewer roles as a traveler on a journey that leads to a tale to be told upon returning home (Kvale, 1996: p. 4). The interviewer – traveler wanders through the landscape and enters into conversations with the people encountered in the sense that he is on the road that leads to the goal. The conversations between the interviewer and local inhabitants deal with their own stories of their live world (conversation as wandering together with). The difference between the first perspective and the latter is the way they perceive knowledge or information gathered from the interviewee. If the first stresses on the objective facts of the subjects, the latter emphasizes not only to new knowledge but also likely to change the knowledge as well. Kvale (1996) illustrates that the journey of the interviewer might instigate a process of reflection that leads the interviewers to new ways of self-understanding as well as uncovering previously taken-for granted values and customs in the traveler’s home country.

In a broad sense, the concluding remark of the two different perspectives eventually provides a clear picture of what position the interviewer should take. The miner metaphor pictures a common understanding in modern social sciences of knowledge as ‘GIVEN’. The traveler metaphor, on the other hand, refers to a post-modern constructive understanding that involves a conversational approach to a social research.

Dunne, et al. (2005) describe that the interview is very adaptable and powerful method in a broad range of research projects. Because of this, it is extremely important for the researcher to have a clear understanding about the reasons he has in mind why and how interview is applicable to his research. In other words, he has to understand his position and be more conscious of himself as a researcher in initial stage of the research. This means that the researcher’s position is considered to refer to (why, how, and who) whether it is articulated or not that the interview as a method of creating texts (Dunne, et al. ,2005).

Definition

Interview is roughly understood as an interaction between two people in a particular occasion where one roles as an interviewer and another as an interviewee. Or an interview is, in general, a conversation between two or more people (the interviewer and the interviewee) where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee. Literally, interview is defined as an inter-view, an inter change of views between two persons conversing about a theme or a topic of mutual interest (Kvale, 1996).

As one type of conversation, interview is basically a mode of human interaction (Kvale, 1996). He describes that through conversations, we get to know other people, get to learn about their experiences, feelings and hopes and the worlds where they live in. As we know, there are two types of conversations. The first is everyday conversation which entails chatting, small talks, exchange of news, disputes, formal negotiation to deep personal interchanges. In this type of conversation, it is usually informal where a person or a group of people involve in do not need necessarily to initiate a conversation with a prescribe topic to talk. Generally, the aim of the everyday conversation is to maintain social relationship rather than to gain specific information for publications.

The second is professional conversations. These types of conversations range from journalistic interviews, legal interrogations, academic oral examinations, religious confessions, therapeutic dialogs to qualitative interview. The latter is in many occasions used to dig up particular information of a particular group of people or events in a certain time. In this sort of conversation, the topic is mostly negotiated so that the people engage in mutually fit in the topic(s) to talk about. The purpose of the conversation is to build up knowledge and therefore it must be well prepared.

Kvale (1996) (cited in Sewell, 2009) figures out a qualitative research interview as an attempt to understand the world from the subject’s point of view, to unfold the meaning of his experiences, to uncover his lived world prior to scientific explanations. Unlike to the daily conversations which are usually reciprocal exchanges, professional interviews involve an interviewer who is in charge in structuring and directing the questioning (Sewell ,2009). Kvale (1996) also stresses that a qualitative interview is based in conversation in which the researcher is asking questions and listening; while respondent is answering questions. In this perspective, Kvale implicitly put the researcher and the interviewee on an equal rather than unequal position. In relation to positioning in interviews, Sewell (2009) points out that in some professional interviews such as job interviews or legal interrogation, the power of the questioner is much greater than the power of the one being questioned.

Unlike Kvale, Rubin and Rubin (2005) stresses qualitative interviews as conversations where a researcher gently guides a conversational partner in an extended discussion. In this sense, the researcher’s position is quite clear where he drives the conversation. In other words, the direction of the conversation is apparently in the hand of researcher.

Semi-structured Interview and its Methodological Perspectives

A semi-structured interview is a method of research used in the social sciences. Hyman, et al.(1954) state that interviewing is a method of inquiry which is universal in the social sciences. For example, the literature of the anthropology is one of the products of the interviewing of informants. It is also mostly used in a life story of a person or a group of people such as the life story of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) codified in a form of Arabic poetry, the life story of Abraham Lincoln, American prominent politician, and many more.

Semi-structured interviews have been widely used because it is linked to the expectation that the interviewed subjects’ view points are more likely to be expressed in a relatively openly designed interview situation than in a standardized interview as in questionnaires (Flick, 2002; example, see Kohli, 1978). While a structured interview has formalized, limited set questions, a semi-structured interview is flexible, allowing new questions to be brought up during the interview as a result of what the interviewee says.

The interviewer in a semi-structured interview generally has a framework of themes to be explored. As Rubin and Rubin (2005: p.171) suggest that good interviews usually consist of a balance between main questions, follow ups, and probes. However, the specific topic or topics that the interviewer wants to explore during the interview should usually be thought about well in advance. It is generally beneficial for interviewers to have an interview guide prepared, which is an informal "grouping of topics and questions that the interviewer can ask in different ways for different participants" (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002). These guides allow researchers to focus an interview on the topics at hand without constraining them to a particular format. This freedom can help interviewers to tailor their questions to the interview context/situation, and to the people they are interviewing (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002).

Qualitative or semi structured interviewing has its own character despite some quite large variations in style and traditions, Mason (2002) suggests that all such interviews has the following key features in common. First is the internal exchange of dialogue. This means that qualitative interviews must involve one-to-one interactions, or large group interviews or what is called focus groups. It may also take place face to face, or over the telephone or via internet. Second, a relatively informal style, for example, with the appearance in face to face in conversational way or a kind of discussion rather than formal questions prescribed. This kind of conversation is called’ conversation with a purpose’ (Burges, 1984).

Third, a thematic or topic - centered, biographical or narrative approach where the researcher has a number of theme or topics, or issues he wishes to cover or a set of starting points for discussions. Having this approach, the researcher is unlikely to have a complete or a sequence script of questions. As it has been well known, qualitative interviews are mostly designed to have fluid and flexible structure. This is to allow the researchers and interviewees to be able to develop unexpected themes.

Fourth, as most of the qualitative research operates from the perspective that knowledge is situated and therefore contextual, the job of the interview is to ensure that the relevant contexts are brought into focus so the situated knowledge can be produced. In this perspective, knowledge at the very least is something reconstructed rather than facts which are simply reported in interview setting. Therefore, Mason (2002), (see also Kvale, 1996) perceives that qualitative interviewing tends to be as involving construction or reconstruction of knowledge more than the excavation of it.

Interviews are one of the most common ways and recognized forms of qualitative research method. For this reason, perhaps, it is not uncommon for the researcher to assume that their study will involve qualitative interviews without spending time working out why it should, what they expect to get out of this method or whether any other methods might be more appropriate or provide a useful complement (Mason, 2002).

In that case, Mason (2002) suggests that the researcher should ask himself why he might use any of the method rather than assuming too soon in the process that he has made the right choice. According to him, the following are possible reasons which the researchers might have why they choose qualitative interviewing as a method of collecting data.

First, the choice of the method of collecting data might be related to one’s ontological position. This means that when a researcher’s position dealing with people’s knowledge is based on the belief that knowledge, views, understandings, experiences, and interactions are meaningful properties of the social reality in which his research questions are designed to explore. For example, a humanistic approach (Plummer, 2001) or it may be in the constitution of language or in discursive construction of the social or the self (Whetherell, et al., 2001)

Second, an epistemological position is another stand point where researchers might choose their method of data collection. This position allows the researchers to have a legitimate or a meaningful way to generate data on these ontological properties. In this circumstance, the researchers according to Mason (2002) should be quite self-critical in judging how well interviews can provide all of the information in relation to asking those questions, gaining access to their accounts and articulations and making analysis of their language and their constructions of the discourse.

Third, as most qualitative researchers view knowledge as situated or situational and the interview is just as much a social situation as is any other interaction. If the researcher’s view of knowledge and evidence is contextual and situational and interactional then he should ensure that the interview itself is contextual in the sense that it draws upon or conjures up as fully as possible, the social experiences or processes which he is interested in exploring. For example, instead of asking abstract questions as Mason (2002) terms as ’one-size-fits-all structured approach, it is better for the researchers to give maximum opportunity for the construction of contextual knowledge by focusing on relevant specific experiences in each interview.

In terms of bias which might be produced during the interaction between the researcher and the interviewee, the researcher is likely better to make certain kinds of epistemological assumption about the interaction which allows him as a researcher to determine that semi-structured interview is appropriate compared to structured interview. This assumption implies that bias in this sort of interview can be controlled or eradicated. This interaction is interlink to social interaction where the researcher cannot separate ’facts’ from ‘context’ however the researcher tries to make social interaction structured or unstructured (Mason, 2002).

It might also a reason to choose qualitative interview according to the researcher’s view of the ways in which social explanations and arguments can be constructed lays on depth, nuance, complexity and roundedness in data rather than kind of broad surveys of surface patterns. For example, if I am interested to study a particular social organization, instead of studying the surface of comparability or superficial analysis like accounts of a large number of people, it is better for me to go in depth analysis in relation to what the organization is piloted to achieve, how people works in it run the programs, or how this organization links to other organizations. This requires the researcher to have distinctive approach to comparison, to analyzing data, and to the construction of the arguments (Mason, 2002).

The choice of qualitative interview may also be based on the activity and reflexivity of the researcher in the process of data generation. Usually, the researcher seeks to examine rather than to be neutral collector of data. So, it is important for the researcher to be neutral in order to be able to understand his role in the interview.

It might also a reason to choose the qualitative interview when the feasibility of data for the researcher in any form to collect is somewhat blurry. In this situation, asking people’s accounts, talking and listen to them, and so on is the only way to generate the data he wants. It is also possible that qualitative interview is chosen to add additional dimension of the research. Having applied this method may help the researcher to approach his research questions from a different angle. For example, the researcher may be attempting some form of methodological triangulation where he is using interview in tandem with another method to see how well they corroborate each other. Finally, research ethics and politics may be another reason in which the researcher believes that the interviewees should be given more freedom in and control the interview situation than is permitted in ’structured’ approaches.

Though there are some common characteristics of qualitative - usually identically known as semi-structured - interviews since it has been mostly used in qualitative research, semi-structured and ethnographic interviews are different in nature. Drever (2003) illustrates that in a semi-structured interview, a researcher creates a structure mapping the topics to be covered, control the interview to ensure coverage and probe for reasons. In contrast, in ethnographic interview, it is important to let the person being interviewed map out the topic and therefore the main question is very open. He further describes that in ethnography, instead of probing for reasons of the interviewee, the ethnographer does probing for ensuring his understanding and very often repeating his respondent’s own language. For example, instead of saying “what do you mean by ‘fair’ in grading system?” as in semi-structured interview, researcher might ask “ is that an example of what you call ‘fair’ in grading system?”

The key different of semi-structured and ethnographic interviews is that in the former it is usually assumed that the interviewer and the interviewee can share a common frame of reference. In other words, the prescribed scheme prior to the interview should make sense to the interviewee, and therefore the interview can be a single businesslike dialogue. In ethnography, however, the job of the interviewer is to find out the respondent’s frame of reference. This can take times and the researcher may have to work towards this point slowly over a series of meetings.

The Purpose of the Interview in the Qualitative Research

When we talk about the purpose of a thing, we deal with who does what to whom; why and how. Similarly, in interviews in any research either in a qualitative or a quantitative research, we deal with who involves in such interviews like who conducts the interviews and to whom they are conducted; why they are conducted; and how they are typically conducted.

In general, an interview is conducted to gather information or data of a particular person or event. The interview must be able to provide useful information about the candidates which might not available from other sources (Powis, 1998 and Abbasi 1998). For example, if someone wants to know what people understand about the unemployment in Brighton and Hove, he might likely to meet and ask questions to a number of different people on that issue. The people who might be involved in this kind of interviews are likely from different backgrounds and positions. They might be city council officers, who work in manpower or jobseekers division, they may also be the jobseekers themselves and or the people in particular agencies who are specialized in handling unemployed. This is, however, a simple way of finding a rough definition of unemployment. Conversely, in gathering data about the unemployment in the Brighton and Hove as a research finding is certainly different from the way we just simply want to understand and write it as news in the newspaper. Rather, it requires a number of deliberate stages.

Mishler (1986) (cited in Holstein and Gubrium, 2001) claims that the purpose of most qualitative interviews is expected to derive interpretations, neither facts nor laws, from respondent talk. He further notices that some frame it as a speech event. In contrast to Mishler (1986), Kvale (1996) emphasizes that interviews for research or evaluation purposes may promote understanding and change as Sewell (2009) highlights in therapeutic or clinical interviews to gain understanding and change despite the stressing is on the personal change. The expected understanding and change in qualitative interviews stresses more on intellectual understanding than on producing personal change.

A decision about whether to use interviews or questionnaires as data collection techniques affects the kinds of understanding one expects to achieve from his research (Drever, 2003). This means that data collection technique should be based on sort of information one wants to cover in his study. For example, if someone sees his research mainly as an ethnographic study or a case study, he will likely prefer to use interviews (semi-structured interview) to a questionnaire. In a case study, for example, the researcher does not aim to cover a whole population and extract common factors, but to provide an in-depth picture of a particular area of the educational world, or also chosen for it is relatively self-contained (Drever, 2003). In this sense, what is required to cover in case study strongly determines the choice of data collection technique.

Conversely, when a researcher aims to provide a general picture of people’s circumstances or opinions, across population which he has defined, for example, what kind of views do the parents have on the introduction of English in primary schools in Indonesia, then, questionnaires are more accountable approach for him to conduct to achieve that purpose.

Although it has been illustrated that the decision of using a particular data collection technique is based on the information required to cover in the study, it does not necessarily mean that both interview (semi-structured interview) and questionnaires are not possibly applied at one study. According to Drever (2003), since the nature of interviews is a depth explanation within a particular context while questionnaires paint a broad though possibly superficial picture, it is often a good idea to use both consecutively. For example, an exploratory survey or a case study using interviews may possibly be used to identify the main issues which can be built into questionnaires. Or it is also possible to extract from questionnaire survey to select interesting issues or may be cases to be followed up in depth using interviews.

Conducting Qualitative Interviews

How the interviewer documents the contents of the interaction with the respondent is a critically important issue. There are many ways or approaches that are possibly used to document the result of the interviews. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of an approach should be considered in order to result a reasonable quality of interview and less-time consuming. Hence, we can list the various options, beginning with the approach that is most complete and most time intensive. Each of the following approaches in collecting interview data has advantages and disadvantages.

Good qualitative interviewing is hard, creative, active work (cited from Holstein and Gubrium, 1995 in Mason, 2002). According to Mason (2002) it is much more complex and exhausting task to plan and carry out a qualitative than to develop and use a structured questionnaire for asking of a set of predetermined questions. To begin with, it requires a great deal of planning (Mason, 2002).

Doing a qualitative interview needs a set of skills. With good skills, the interviewer is likely trouble-free to organize what to ask, how to ask to the interviewee and at the same time how to encounter the information delivered by the interviewee by understanding verbal an non-verbal information, remembering and absorbing what have been covered while keep watching points to probe and follow up and taking notes in the interviewee’s whenever possible. Though, such skills are required but it is not necessarily to have all the skills when doing an interview (Drever, 2003; Mason, 2002; see also Hermanns, 2004). What Drever suggests is the preparation rather than improvisation. This means that when someone wants to do interview he needs to develop a simple schedule and try to stick to it, word questions naturally and use a tape recorder and therefore, he needs not depend heavily on interviewing skills. Drever (2003) describes that when beginners get into difficulties, it is most often because they feel obliged to get involved in the interview. Consequently, he tends to talk too much and in turn starts to get drawn off the prescribed schedule or starts leading his respondent.

In contrast, some other interviewees get excellent interview results for they are doing as ’minimalist’ (Drever, 2003). It means that what they do is loosely using the scheduled main questions in hands instead of tightly following each of such questions during the interviews. Therefore, the interviewers are suggested to better think about how to keep the interview manageable rather than becoming concerned about general interviewing skills. Therefore, Hermanns (2004) suggests that the interviewer must create space for the subjects to reveal different aspects of personality. Encouraging the interviewer is an important part of the interview. The encouragement can be verbal and non verbal such as nod, smile, or whatever the reply to reduce tension of the interviewee.

The following are some non-cognitive skills which are recommended to the qualitative interviewers to have in mind though it is not necessarily to cover them all at the same time during interviews. These non-cognitive skills include:

1. Verbal communication skills
2. Time management and flexibility
3. Knowledge of the profession
4. Problem solving and Decision making skills
5. Values and Integrity
6. Attitudes
7. Physical appearance including health, speech and poise
8. Perseverance
9. Self confidence without arrogance

(Arksey and Knight, 1999; Heremanns, 2004)

Analysis of Result of the Interview

According to Drever (2003), to represent the raw data from which you aim to extract the answer to your research questions, there are three stages are required to engage in. First step is data preparation. In this stage, the interviewer is required to work with the data in which he needs to tidy up his raw data and put it into a form that is easy to work with. Usually, time will be spent on a careful preparation. However, a good preparation allows researcher to work over his data easily in the later stage and this is the payoff of repeatedly working over each section of the data collected. For example, when transcribing data you will find it difficult especially if some expressions are not quite clear so that you will spend more times on them. It is also quite possible that some of information might be lost such as laugh, gestures, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice. What you can do in such situation is to be patiently working over and over again to keep your data sensible. Drever (2006) suggests that to retain some nuances of the talk which might be lost, the researcher may use comments or symbols.

Managing data according to their properties is imperative to make sure the data manageable while at the same time retaining as much of the original information as possible and avoiding any distortion (Drever, 2006). If this principle is applied properly, it will make the researcher straightforwardly become familiar with the full range of what he has collected. Thus, this will make him quickly locate specific material.

Second step is analysis in which the interviewer is required to try various ways of categorizing and reorganizing the prepared data, seek patterns in it that have a bearing in his research questions (Drever, 2006). In this stage, categorizing, coding, and counting data is done on the basis of questions addressed in the research. For example, the data concerning with grading derived from students’ interviews should be located, coded, and counted separately from grading responses collected from say teachers or principle. Reorganizing according to the properties of the data such as what research questions match to the text being coded or categorized. This will make the researcher easy to track of where materials come from, which respondent, which interview question.

Final step is summarizing results. In this stage, the interviewer or the researcher uses the patterns to develop conclusions. Here a variety of approaches is possible to use. This reflects flexibility of semi-structured interview compared to other ways of collecting data. According to Drever (2006), it could be based on the original structure of the interview in relation to the research questions addressed for the first time but later, the original structure may be recreated in order to gain different sight. The summary pattern might involve the whole sample, or it might also involve groups or individual. In summarizing, it is possible for the researcher to quantify (using numbers) but he must be certain that what he does is simply to make a clear-cut category of the data. For example, regarding with pros and cons of particular statement dealing with grading and mixed responses, the researcher needs to make a judgment about each case.

Similarly, Ritchie and Spencer (1994) see that a qualitative data analysis is essentially about detection. The task of defining, categorizing, theorizing, explaining, exploring and mapping, are fundamental to the analyst’s role. The methods functions will vary according the research question being addressed, in applied policy research the following are frequently included:

1. Defining concepts: understanding internal structures;
2. Mapping the range, nature, dynamic and phenomena;
3. Creating typologies, categorizing different type of attitudes behaviors and motivations;
4. Finding associations: between experiences and attitudes, between attitudes and behaviors; between circumstances and motivations, etc.
5. Seeking explanations: explicit or implicit;
6. Developing new ideas, theories or strategies.

Here is an example of summary of the research studies

The study	Type	Aims or objectives	Sample	Type of data	Time-scale
Talking about sex	Contextual	To explore sexual attitudes and behaviors; to study perceived links between sexual practices and health; To develop issues and clarify language for survey	40 individuals	Depth interviews	10 months

Ritchie and Spencer (1994:177)

Ethical and Methodological Issues in Qualitative Interview

In qualitative research, little is ever usually written about the process of analysis at all; little is said about who the analysts are; which particular perspectives they adopt; how are disagreements resolved; whether full transcripts are used; how much is reported; what level of uncodable or unsortable data is tolerable; and what basis is used for filtering data.

(Powney and Watts, 1987).

The quotation depicts how hard the way the social scientists learn from in the data analysis. There are always competing issues dealing with how data are analyzed no matter how experienced the researchers are and how well analysis has been planned. In fact, according to Arskey and Knight (1999), this phase can take novice as well as experienced researchers longer than expected before the report is finalized and presented.

There are some possible issues may emerge during the data analysis. First, it is the issue about the interviewee’s judgments hidden from the researcher (subjectivity: interviewer bias). According to Arskey and Knight (1999), in a closed question(s), responses are the results of informants who possibly make judgments about the best fit between their experience and the response categories. This is of course are hidden to the researcher. It is very common experience when someone is trying to answer closed questions that categories from which he has to choose often do not quite match the subtlety of his experience, beliefs and feelings, so he ends up trying to compress that complexity into one simple, ill fitting category. For example, a closed question like - In the last 12 months, have you visited your doctor? If you have answered ‘yes’, how many times you have visited? - simply allows for the interviewee to say yes or no and then choose one of the options has been provided that might be matched with what he or she really did. In contrast, in open-ended question as in most qualitative interviews, respondent’s responses should be in a clear thought and at the same time a good interviewer will have explored it.

Another important issue is the researcher’s preconception (subjectivity: interviewer bias). In general, most of the time, the researcher comes to the research setting with his particular preconception. In semi-structured interview, for instance, some guided questions have been prescribed before hand. This indicates that the researcher has set up in his mind what he is going to ask to the interviewee though he still leaves rooms for the interviewee to openly respond to the questions in a free-minded. In relation to this issue, Arskey and Knight (1999) sees that in open questions, there are many more scopes for collecting data that go beyond the researcher’s preconceived notion of how things are likely to be, while in closed questions, the respondent in general will simply respond the researcher’s agenda. They further describe that the design of the study, which has determined the data which the researcher has collected and which shapes the way in which he will interpret them, reflects his understanding, preconceptions, beliefs, prejudices, and feelings.

Researcher’s judgment is one of the important ethical issues which might influence the quality of interviews. It is essential to note that the result of the interview should be crosschecked to make sure that the interviewer’s judgment does not affect the interpretation of the data. For example, when I ask about how the grading system applied in my subject’s primary school affects him in terms of his achievement, his feeling, and his self-esteem among their peers, I have to make sure myself that I do not make prejudgment on this matter. How to ensure my personal judgment will not affect the meaning of the data, the inter-observer is required to keep the reliability of the judgment.

In terms of cause and effect, Arskey and Knight (1999) suggest that connections may be discerned, but without the formal support of statistical analysis again it is an error to do more than speculate on possible causal relationships.

Of all ethical issues, Wilson (1996) states that an important set of issues from the social scientist’s point of view is concerned with the reaction of human subjects to knowledge (validity: extent to which interview measures what it claims to measure and reliability: consistency of interview) that they are being investigated. This is where the natural science investigation different from social science views the subject of the research (in Natural science as inanimate objects of investigation). To social scientists, the research subject can change for example beliefs and attitudes.

Here are some factors which might affect the contextual of the interviews (critical one);

1. The terms on which the interview has been agreed to is important for example, respondent’s beliefs, opinions or status in other words what is the legitimacy of the interviewer? Though frequently some offers (sums of money or gifts) to the interviewees as rewards for cooperation, very little direct use to the respondents.

2. The context of interviewing affects response rate greatly. Market research interviews often achieve a response rate of less than 50 percent mainly through refusal instead of failure to contact the respondent.

3. The perception of the interviewer’s characteristics by the respondent for example the way of interviewee in ascribing beliefs and opinions to the interviewer on the basis of visible characteristics such as accent and dress (social class), ethnic, or gender.

Conclusion

Based on the overall presentations, it can be concluded that there are two fundamental reasons why qualitative researchers tend to use semi-structured instead of structured and unstructured interviews. Firstly, semi-structured interview is more powerful in a sense that it allows for the researcher(s) especially in qualitative researches to dig up information in depth from informants compared to structured interviews. Secondly, it is flexible and adaptable and at the same time it holds its directive sense compared to unstructured where it absolutely looses its direction. Hence, semi-structured interview might provide rooms for the researchers to adjust it with their research questions if there is a possible change yet still maintains its directive sense since main topics to discuss have been prescribed before hand.

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