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Project 3: Semistructured and Structured Interviewing

The only way to learn interviewing is to practice.  This project is designed to expose you to two types of interviewing we discussed in class, semistructured and structured.  It also aims to illustrate how moving from relatively unstructured to more highly structured data collection techniques can improve the validity of our findings.  This project is due on Wednesday, June 14 at 9:00 a.m.  Please follow the instructions carefully.

1. Begin by formulating a research question that is appropriate for a set of interviews.  Many of you may be able to use the questions you developed in Project 1, but you are not required to do so.  For the sake of convenience, you may want to limit yourself to a topic that would be feasible to study among college students-substance abuse, political preferences, or racism, for example.  However, you shouldn't feel restricted to college students, if you have access to other groups of interest to you.  My advice is to choose a research question you'd really like to answer, not one "just for practice."

2. Develop an interview guide with at least three broad questions relating to your research question.  Remember that an interview guide is used in semistructured interviews to specify the questions you want to cover and the order in which you want to cover them, but you allow respondents to answer in their own terms and at their own pace.  The interview guide should include an introduction of yourself and the purposes of your study.  It should also instruct you to ask for permission to take notes and tape record the interview.  Conduct two semistructured interviews with people you think might be knowledgeable about your topic.  Don't select friends or other members of class for this exercise, because you want this to be an authentic interview.  Before beginning, review the techniques for probing we discussed in class.  Hand in your interview guide with the assignment.

3. Based on the semistructured interviews and your own experience, construct a brief questionnaire with 10-15 closed-ended questions about your topic.  Include a few relevant demographic items like age, sex, and other appropriate characteristics.  Now use the questionnaire to conduct five face-to-face interviews with different respondents.  Again, do not interview friends or other member of class.  Hand in your questionnaire with the assignment.

4. Write a brief essay to report the results of your interviews.  In no more than five pages, you should summarize the responses to both the semistructured and structured interviews, and comment on any differences or similarities between the two types of interviews.  Are you more confident in the results from one type of interview or the other?  Do you see any advantages in using both types of interviews together?  Did you experience any particular difficulties in conducting the interviews?  What other insights did you gain?