why use semi structured interviews in research

• What is a semi-structured interview?

Last updated

5 February 2023

Reviewed by

Cathy Heath

When designed correctly, user interviews go much deeper than surface-level survey responses. They can provide new information about how people interact with your products and services, and shed light on the underlying reasons behind these habits.

Semi-structured user interviews are widely considered one of the most effective tools for doing this kind of qualitative research , depending on your specific goals. As the name suggests, the semi-structured format allows for a more natural, conversational flow, while still being organized enough to collect plenty of actionable data .

Analyze semi-structured interviews

Bring all your semi-structured interviews into one place to analyze and understand

A semi-structured interview is a qualitative research method used to gain an in-depth understanding of the respondent's feelings and beliefs on specific topics. As the interviewer prepares the questions ahead of time, they can adjust the order, skip any that are redundant, or create new ones. Additionally, the interviewer should be prepared to ask follow-up questions and probe for more detail.

Semi-structured interviews typically last between 30 and 60 minutes and are usually conducted either in person or via a video call. Ideally, the interviewer can observe the participant's verbal and non-verbal cues in real-time, allowing them to adjust their approach accordingly. The interviewer aims for a conversational flow that helps the participant talk openly while still focusing on the primary topics being researched.

Once the interview is over, the researcher analyzes the data in detail to draw meaningful results. This involves sorting the data into categories and looking for patterns and trends. This semi-structured interview approach provides an ideal framework for obtaining open-ended data and insights.

• When to use a semi-structured interview?

Semi-structured interviews are considered the "best of both worlds" as they tap into the strengths of structured and unstructured methods. Researchers can gather reliable data while also getting unexpected insights from in-depth user feedback.

Semi-structured interviews can be useful during any stage of the UX product-development process, including exploratory research to better understand a new market or service. Further down the line, this approach is ideal for refining existing designs and discovering areas for improvement. Semi-structured interviews can even be the first step when planning future research projects using another method of data collection.

• Advantages of semi-structured interviews

Flexibility

This style of interview is meant to be adapted according to the answers and reactions of the respondent, which gives a lot of flexibility. Semi-structured interviews encourage two-way communication, allowing themes and ideas to emerge organically.

Respondent comfort

The semi-structured format feels more natural and casual for participants than a formal interview. This can help to build rapport and more meaningful dialogue.

Semi-structured interviews are excellent for user experience research because they provide rich, qualitative data about how people really experience your products and services.

Open-ended questions allow the respondent to provide nuanced answers, with the potential for more valuable insights than other forms of data collection, like structured interviews , surveys , or questionnaires.

• Disadvantages of semi-structured interviews

Can be unpredictable

Less structure brings less control, especially if the respondent goes off tangent or doesn't provide useful information. If the conversation derails, it can take a lot of effort to bring the focus back to the relevant topics.

Lack of standardization

Every semi-structured interview is unique, including potentially different questions, so the responses collected are very subjective. This can make it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from the data unless your team invests the time in a comprehensive analysis.

Compared to other research methods, unstructured interviews are not as consistent or "ready to use."

• Best practices when preparing for a semi-structured interview

While semi-structured interviews provide a lot of flexibility, they still require thoughtful planning. Maximizing the potential of this research method will depend on having clear goals that help you narrow the focus of the interviews and keep each session on track.

After taking the time to specify these parameters, create an interview guide to serve as a framework for each conversation. This involves crafting a range of questions that can explore the necessary themes and steer the conversation in the right direction. Everything in your interview guide is optional (that's the beauty of being "semi" structured), but it's still an essential tool to help the conversation flow and collect useful data.

Best practices to consider while designing your interview questions include:

Prioritize open-ended questions

Promote a more interactive, meaningful dialogue by avoiding questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no, otherwise known as close-ended questions.

Stick with "what," "when," "who," "where," "why," and "how" questions, which allow the participant to go beyond the superficial to express their ideas and opinions. This approach also helps avoid jargon and needless complexity in your questions.

Open-ended questions help the interviewer uncover richer, qualitative details, which they can build on to get even more valuable insights.

Plan some follow-up questions

When preparing questions for the interview guide, consider the responses you're likely to get and pair them up with some effective, relevant follow-up questions. Factual questions should be followed by ones that ask an opinion.

Planning potential follow-up questions will help you to get the most out of a semi-structured interview. They allow you to delve deeper into the participant's responses or hone in on the most important themes of your research focus.

Follow-up questions are also invaluable when the interviewer feels stuck and needs a meaningful prompt to continue the conversation.

Avoid leading questions

Leading questions are framed toward a predetermined answer. This makes them likely to result in data that is biased, inaccurate, or otherwise unreliable.

For example, asking "Why do you think our services are a good solution?" or "How satisfied have you been with our services?" will leave the interviewee feeling pressured to agree with some baseline assumptions.

Interviewers must take the time to evaluate their questions and make a conscious effort to remove any potential bias that could get in the way of authentic feedback.

Asking neutral questions is key to encouraging honest responses in a semi-structured interview. For example, "What do you consider to be the advantages of using our services?" or simply "What has been your experience with using our services?"

Neutral questions are effective in capturing a broader range of opinions than closed questions, which is ultimately one of the biggest benefits of using semi-structured interviews for research.

Use the critical incident method

The critical incident method is an approach to interviewing that focuses on the past behavior of respondents, as opposed to hypothetical scenarios. One of the challenges of all interview research methods is that people are not great at accurately recalling past experiences, or answering future-facing, abstract questions.

The critical incident method helps avoid these limitations by asking participants to recall extreme situations or 'critical incidents' which stand out in their memory as either particularly positive or negative. Extreme situations are more vivid so they can be recalled more accurately, potentially providing more meaningful insights into the interviewee’s experience with your products or services.

• Best practices while conducting semi-structured interviews

Encouraging interaction is the key to collecting more specific data than is typically possible during a formal interview. Facilitating an effective semi-structured interview is a balancing act between asking prepared questions and creating the space for organic conversation. Here are some guidelines for striking the right tone.

Beginning the interview

Make participants feel comfortable by introducing yourself and your role at the organization and displaying appropriate body language.

Outline the purpose of the interview to give them an idea of what to expect. For example, explain that you want to learn more about how people use your product or service.

It's also important to thank them for their time in advance and emphasize there are no right or wrong answers.

Practice active listening

Build trust and rapport throughout the interview with active listening techniques, focusing on being present and demonstrating that you're paying attention by responding thoughtfully. Engage with the participant by making eye contact, nodding, and giving verbal cues like "Okay, I see," "I understand," and "M-hm."

Avoid the temptation to rush to fill any silences while they're in the middle of responding, even if it feels awkward. Give them time to finish their train of thought before interrupting with feedback or another prompt. Embracing these silences is essential for active listening because it's a sign of a productive interview with meaningful, candid responses.

Practicing these techniques will ensure the respondent feels heard and respected, which is critical for gathering high-quality information.

Ask clarifying questions in real time

In a semi-structured interview, the researcher should always be on the lookout for opportunities to probe into the participant's thoughts and opinions.

Along with preparing follow-up questions, get in the habit of asking clarifying questions whenever possible. Clarifying questions are especially important for user interviews because people often provide vague responses when discussing how they interact with products and services.

Being asked to go deeper will encourage them to give more detail and show them you’re taking their opinions seriously and are genuinely interested in understanding their experiences.

Some clarifying questions that can be asked in real-time include:

"That's interesting. Could you give me some examples of X?"

"What do you mean when you say "X"?"

"Why is that?"

"It sounds like you're saying [rephrase their response], is that correct?"

Minimize note-taking

In a wide-ranging conversation, it's easy to miss out on potentially valuable insights by not staying focused on the user. This is why semi-structured interviews are generally recorded (audio or video), and it's common to have a second researcher present to take notes.

The person conducting the interview should avoid taking notes because it's a distraction from:

Keeping track of the conversation

Engaging with the user

Asking thought-provoking questions

Watching you take notes can also have the unintended effect of making the participant feel pressured to give shallower, shorter responses—the opposite of what you want.

Concluding the interview

Semi-structured interviews don't come with a set number of questions, so it can be tricky to bring them to an end. Give the participant a sense of closure by asking whether they have anything to add before wrapping up, or if they want to ask you any questions, and then give sincere thanks for providing honest feedback.

Don't stop abruptly once all the relevant topics have been discussed or you're nearing the end of the time that was set aside. Make them feel appreciated!

• Analyzing the data from semi-structured interviews

In some ways, the real work of semi-structured interviews begins after all the conversations are over, and it's time to analyze the data you've collected. This process will focus on sorting and coding each interview to identify patterns, often using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.

Some of the strategies for making sense of semi-structured interviews include:

Thematic analysis : focuses on the content of the interviews and identifying common themes

Discourse analysis : looks at how people express feelings about themes such as those involving politics, culture, and power

Qualitative data mapping: a visual way to map out the correlations between different elements of the data

Narrative analysis : uses stories and language to unlock perspectives on an issue

Grounded theory : can be applied when there is no existing theory that could explain a new phenomenon

Should you be using a customer insights hub?

Do you want to discover previous research faster?

Do you share your research findings with others?

Do you analyze research data?

Start for free today, add your research, and get to key insights faster

Editor’s picks

Last updated: 13 April 2023

Last updated: 14 February 2024

Last updated: 27 January 2024

Last updated: 18 April 2023

Last updated: 8 February 2023

Last updated: 23 January 2024

Last updated: 30 January 2024

Last updated: 7 February 2023

Last updated: 7 March 2023

Last updated: 18 May 2023

Last updated: 13 May 2024

Latest articles

Related topics, .css-je19u9{-webkit-align-items:flex-end;-webkit-box-align:flex-end;-ms-flex-align:flex-end;align-items:flex-end;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;-webkit-box-flex-wrap:wrap;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;row-gap:0;text-align:center;max-width:671px;}@media (max-width: 1079px){.css-je19u9{max-width:400px;}.css-je19u9>span{white-space:pre;}}@media (max-width: 799px){.css-je19u9{max-width:400px;}.css-je19u9>span{white-space:pre;}} decide what to .css-1kiodld{max-height:56px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}@media (max-width: 1079px){.css-1kiodld{display:none;}} build next, decide what to build next.

Users report unexpectedly high data usage, especially during streaming sessions.

Users find it hard to navigate from the home page to relevant playlists in the app.

It would be great to have a sleep timer feature, especially for bedtime listening.

I need better filters to find the songs or artists I’m looking for.

Log in or sign up

Get started for free

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Emotions
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Language Acquisition
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Culture
• Music and Religion
• Music and Media
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Society
• Law and Politics
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Oncology
• Medical Toxicology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Medical Ethics
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Games
• Computer Security
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business History
• Business Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Systems
• Economic History
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Theory
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Politics and Law
• Politics of Development
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

6 Semi-structured interviewing

• Published: June 2005
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

This chapter presents a guide to conducting effective semi-structured interviews. It discusses the nature of semi-structured interviews and why they should be used, as well as preparation, the logistics of conducting the interview, and reflexivity.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

• Google Scholar Indexing
• GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Semi-structured Interviews

• Reference work entry
• First Online: 01 January 2020
• pp 4825–4830
• Cite this reference work entry

• Danielle Magaldi 3 &
• Matthew Berler 4  

63 Citations

Open-ended interview ; Qualitative interview ; Systematic exploratory interview ; Thematic interview

The semi-structured interview is an exploratory interview used most often in the social sciences for qualitative research purposes or to gather clinical data. While it generally follows a guide or protocol that is devised prior to the interview and is focused on a core topic to provide a general structure, the semi-structured interview also allows for discovery, with space to follow topical trajectories as the conversation unfolds.

Introduction

Qualitative interviews exist on a continuum, ranging from free-ranging, exploratory discussions to highly structured interviews. On one end is unstructured interviewing, deployed by approaches such as ethnography, grounded theory, and phenomenology. This style of interview involves a changing protocol that evolves based on participants’ responses and will differ from one participant to the next. On the other end of the continuum...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Baumbusch, J. (2010). Semi-structured interviewing in practice-close research. Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing; Hoboken, 15 (3), 255–258.

Article   Google Scholar  

Clarkin, A. J., Ammaniti, M., & Fontana, A. (2015). The use of a psychodynamic semi-structured personality assessment interview in school settings. Adolescent Psychiatry, 5 (4), 237–244. https://doi.org/10.2174/2210676606666160502125435 .

Cooper, Z., & Fairburn, C. (1987). The Eating Disorder Examination: A semi-structured interview for the assessment of the specific psychopathology of eating disorders. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 6 (1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1002/1098-108X(198701)6:1<1::AID-EAT2260060102>3.0.CO;2-9 .

Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Google Scholar  

Dearnley, C. (2005). A reflection on the use of semi-structured interviews. Nurse Researcher, 13 (1), 19–28. https://doi.org/10.7748/nr2005.07.13.1.19.c5997 .

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

DiCicco-Bloom, B., & Crabtree, B. F. (2006). The qualitative research interview. Medical Education, 40 (4), 314–321. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2006.02418.x .

Elliott, R., Fischer, C. T., & Rennie, D. L. (1999). Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38 (3), 215–229.

Fylan, F. (2005). Semi-structured interviewing. In A handbook of research methods for clinical and health psychology (pp. 65–77). New York: Oxford University Press.

Galanter, C. A., & Patel, V. L. (2005). Medical decision making: A selective review for child psychiatrists and psychologists. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46 (7), 675–689. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01452.x .

Galletta, A. (2013). Mastering the semi-structured interview and beyond: From research design to analysis and publication . New York: New York University Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Gibbs, L., Kealy, M., Willis, K., Green, J., Welch, N., & Daly, J. (2007). What have sampling and data collection got to do with good qualitative research? Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 31 (6), 291–295. https://doi.org/10.1028/bdj.2008.192 .

Glenn, C. R., Weinberg, A., & Klonsky, E. D. (2009). Relationship of the Borderline Symptom List to DSM-IV borderline personality disorder criteria assessed by semi-structured interview. Psychopathology; Basel, 42 (6), 394–398.

Haverkamp, B. E. (2005). Ethical perspectives on qualitative research in applied psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52 (2), 146.

Hill, C., Knox, S., Thompson, B., Williams, E., Hess, S., & Ladany, N. (2005). Consensual qualitative research: An update. Journal of Counseling Psychology . Retrieved from http://epublications.marquette.edu/edu_fac/18

Hutsebaut, J., Kamphuis, J. H., Feenstra, D. J., Weekers, L. C., & De Saeger, H. (2017). Assessing DSM–5-oriented level of personality functioning: Development and psychometric evaluation of the Semi-Structured Interview for Personality Functioning DSM–5 (STiP-5.1). Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 8 (1), 94–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/per0000197 .

Kallio, H., Pietilä, A., Johnson, M., & Kangasniemi, M. (2016). Systematic methodological review: Developing a framework for a qualitative semi-structured interview guide. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72 (12), 2954–2965. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13031 .

Kaufman, J., Birmaher, B., Brent, D., Rao, U., Flynn, C., Moreci, P., … Ryan, N. (1997). Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL): Initial reliability and validity data. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 36 (7), 980–988. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199707000-00021 .

Knox, S., & Burkard, A. W. (2014). Qualitative research interviews: An update. In W. Lutz, S. Knox, W. Lutz, & S. Knox (Eds.), Quantitative and qualitative methods in psychotherapy research (pp. 342–354). New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Kraus, S. E., Hamzah, A., Omar, Z., Suandi, T., Ismail, I. A., & Zahari, M. Z. (2009). Preliminary investigation and interview guide development for studying how Malaysian farmers form their mental models of farming. The Qualitative Report, 14 (2), 245–260.

McTate, E. A., & Leffler, J. M. (2017). Diagnosing disruptive mood dysregulation disorder: Integrating semi-structured and unstructured interviews. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 22 (2), 187–203. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359104516658190 .

Pierucci-Lagha, A., Gelernter, J., Chan, G., Arias, A., Cubells, J. F., Farrer, L., & Kranzler, H. R. (2007). Reliability of DSM-IV diagnostic criteria using the semi-structured assessment for drug dependence and alcoholism (SSADDA). Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 91 (1), 85–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2007.04.014 .

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2010a). Essentials of nursing research: Appraising evidence for nursing practice . Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Polit, D. S., & Beck, C. T. (2010b). Essentials of nursing research. Appraising evidence for nursing practice (7th ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven Publishers.

Ramos-Quiroga, J. A., Nasillo, V., Richarte, V., Corrales, M., Palma, F., Ibáñez, P., … Kooij, J. J. S. (2016). Criteria and concurrent validity of DIVA 2.0: A semi-structured diagnostic interview for adult ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders . https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054716646451 .

Rennie, D. L. (2004). Reflexivity and person-centered counseling. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 44 , 182–203.

Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2005). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Ryan, A. B. (2006). Post-positivist approaches to research. In Researching and writing your thesis: A guide for postgraduate students (pp. 12–26). Ireland: MACE: Maynooth Adult and Community Education.

Turner, D. W. (2010). Qualitative interview design: A practical guide for novice researcher. The Qualitative Report, 15 (3), 754–760.

Whiting, L. S. (2008). Semi-structured interviews: Guidance for novice researchers. Nursing Standard, 22 (23), 35–40.

Williams, E. N., & Morrow, S. L. (2009). Achieving trustworthiness in qualitative research: A pan-paradigmatic perspective. Psychotherapy Research, 19 (4–5), 576–582.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

City University of New York, Lehman College, New York City, NY, USA

Danielle Magaldi

Pace University, New York City, NY, USA

Matthew Berler

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Danielle Magaldi .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

Department of Educational Sciences, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

Patrizia Velotti

Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Magaldi, D., Berler, M. (2020). Semi-structured Interviews. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_857

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_857

Published : 22 April 2020

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-24610-9

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-24612-3

eBook Packages : Behavioral Science and Psychology Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Share this entry

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Mastering Semi-Structured Interviews

Introduction

What is the difference between structured and semi-structured interviews, when to use a semi-structured interview, best practices for conducting semi-structured interviews, semi-structured interviews in qualitative research.

Interviews are an integral part of qualitative and social science research . While observational research explores what people do, interviews look at what people say and believe. The interview is an important research method to capture people's perspectives and experiences concerning relevant topics.

Three different types of interviews can be utilized in research. In this article, we will look at the semi-structured interview. This form of interview offers a balance between a rigid interaction that produces neatly organized data and a fluid conversation that can explore unexpected but relevant aspects of the phenomenon under study.

Among research methods , interviewing focuses on the experiences and perspectives that people have about a particular topic. In contrast, other research methods such as experiments and observations focus on what people do or how things work. However, people may look at the same cultural or social practice and think different things about it, making interviews important to capture potential nuances in experiences and interpretations.

Conducting an interview is a more complex task than simply talking with people. Qualitative researchers can adopt three different approaches to talking with interview respondents. The most straightforward form of interview is the structured interview , which is a rigid form of interview that asks a specific set of questions. It is fully structured in that all questions are specified beforehand and the interviewer poses the same questions to all participants, without any variations or asking any follow-up questions on the spot. A strength of structured interviews is that asking only predetermined questions produces uniform data that makes comparisons across participants easier, as answers from structured interviews can be quickly sorted into a matrix or spreadsheet for simple comparison.

Another type of interview is the semi-structured interview, which also has predetermined questions but allows for follow-up questions for deeper exploration. In this case, the interview can be seen as a formal conversation, with the researcher having a predetermined set of topics and questions they want to ask, while at the same time remaining open to asking other questions as the conversation unfolds. As a result, a semi-structured interview offers the necessary flexibility for researchers to explore any relevant ideas that may emerge as the participant answers questions and shares new information.

Advantages of semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviews allow the researcher to probe deeply into the perspectives of interview respondents, while structured interviews have a rigid format that does not allow for the interviewer to elicit more detail if given the opportunity.

The semi-structured format also provides the necessary guidance for researchers to stay focused on the key topics at hand. While the interview may go through the questions in a different order or explore additional topics, the predetermined questions in a semi-structured interview ensures that the important topics are sufficiently explored.

Disadvantages of semi-structured interviews

Unlike in a formal interview, the open-ended nature of semi-structured interviews can allow for the interview respondent to take the conversation in unanticipated directions. While this is a useful feature of semi-structured interviews, it is also important for the interviewer to guide the conversation toward the topic of study to ensure that the collected data will be relevant to the research question.

A semi-structured interview also requires the interviewer to engage in active listening to be able to take advantage of opportunities to ask probing questions. In this respect, interviewers may require training to ensure that they can effectively conduct a semi-structured interview that explores respondents' perspectives deeply enough while collecting data relevant to the research inquiry.

Unstructured interviews

One more distinction to keep in mind is that of the unstructured interview . While structured and semi-structured interviews have predetermined questions tailored to address the research question , unstructured interviews have no framework set before conducting the interview.

These kinds of interviews are meant to be more informal or exploratory in nature; they allow respondents to answer as freely as possible and permits the interviewer to follow the dialogue wherever it goes. While both semi-structured and unstructured interviews can employ spontaneous follow-up questions, semi-structured interviews are designed to ensure that a set of key questions are asked to all respondents to ensure relevant data is collected.

While interviews can follow predetermined structures to different degrees, interviewing as a data collection method is a social act that involves developing rapport with the interview respondent so that they feel comfortable to answer freely. This is also important to collect rich data that shed light on the phenomenon under study.

Keep in mind that any qualitative interview, regardless of type, focuses on open-ended questions. Any study that is more suited to closed-ended questions may find survey research more conducive to addressing their research inquiry.

Organize your interview data with ATLAS.ti

Powerful tools to manage and analyze research projects of all sizes. Start with a free trial today.

A semi-structured interview is ideal when you want to explore individuals' experiences and perspectives around a particular topic. It is also important to have a clearly defined research agenda with specific objectives that your interview respondents can address. Your research objectives can inform the core questions you can pose to respondents.

In addition, if you are still looking to inductively generate theory in areas that have little theoretical coherence or conceptualization, a semi-structured interview is ideal because it allows you to probe further into the ideas that emerge from your respondents. Semi-structured interviews are thus powerful data collection tools when you are looking to build a theory or explore individuals' experiences or perspectives.

Interviewing in qualitative research is not merely an act of conversing with research participants. It is a research method aimed at exploring the perspectives and ideas of research participants as deeply as possible.

When you conduct semi-structured interviews, it is important to intentionally consider every major element of the study, from the selection of participants to the questions asked, even the setting in which the interviews take place.

Preparing for a semi-structured interview

Think about which participants can adequately address the objectives in your study. For example, if your research inquiry deals with a specific cultural practice from a particular perspective, then you will benefit from choosing respondents who can best speak to that perspective.

Also reflect on how you will interact with your respondents. What is the best way to reach them and elicit their ideas? To engage in a meaningful conversation with your participants, it is important to pose questions in a way that is easy for others to understand, avoiding any jargon and preparing alternative ways to ask each question. Moreover, interview questions should be adjusted to each participant. Interviewing children is a different matter from interviewing adults. If the respondents' first language is different from yours, you may also want to consider adjusting your language to make yourself understood. The respondent's individual circumstances will play an important role in how you conduct your interview.

In addition, consider what equipment you will use to collect qualitative data in the form of audio or video recordings , and aim to record in as high a quality as possible. While the audio recorder on most smartphones is adequate enough to capture most conversations, you may want to think about using professional equipment if you are conducting interviews in public environments like cafés or parks. A camera may also be appropriate if you want to record facial expressions, gestures, and other body language for later analysis.

Semi-structured interview questions

A researcher should prepare an interview guide that lists all the necessary questions to be asked and topics to be explored. The guide can be flexible and researchers can ask the questions in whichever order naturally unfolds during the conversation. Nonetheless, having a guide helps ensure that the researcher is collecting data relevant to the research question.

When designing interview guides, consider how your questions are framed and how they might be received by the interview respondent. Avoid leading questions that may elicit socially desirable responses, and prepare alternative ways to word your questions in case participants don't understand a question.

Preparing follow-up questions

Probing questions make for effective follow-ups that encourage respondents to provide in-depth information about the topic at hand. A common challenge of interviews is that participants may provide very brief responses or not deeply engage with the conversation. Preparing prompts and probes can help researchers encourage participants to open up or provide more details if needed.

In general, an interviewer should invite the respondent to elaborate on answers when additional details can benefit the research. Taking advantage of such opportunities in a semi-structured interview can greatly contribute to the theoretical development arising from the interview study. These prompts and probes can be as simple as asking for more details, nodding along, or practicing silence. Another helpful tactic is to ask participants to provide an example or walk you through the story they are sharing.

The interview itself is just one of the components of the interview study. During and after the semi-structured interview, take the following into consideration to ensure rigorous data collection .

Collecting qualitative data in the form of interviews

In most cases, interview data takes the form of transcriptions of raw audio or video recordings of the interview conversations. It's important to ensure that you have the necessary equipment to record and transcribe the interview. Being able to count on high quality recordings is crucial to make transcription easier and more accurate.

While you can certainly analyze the actual recordings, textual data can make the analysis process easier and more manageable. You can use qualitative data analysis software such as ATLAS.ti to analyze multimedia or text data; another benefit of text data is that many additional analysis tools can be used to analyze the structure or contents of the data.

An interview researcher should also consider how the interview is conducted. After all, the two-way communication in a face-to-face interview has different effects on the interview respondent from an interview that is conducted online or by email. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the environment in which you will conduct the interview so that you can anticipate any issues that arise regarding clarity between you and your respondents.

During the course of any interview, it may benefit your analysis to capture detailed notes about the interactions you have with your respondents. A good practice is to note down any observations or impressions immediately after concluding each interview while the interaction is fresh in your mind. Many interviewers use these notes to remind them of potentially significant theoretical developments that can be used when coding the data.

Interviews with vulnerable populations

For interview projects that involve sensitive issues, the researcher should be mindful of how questions are posed and what is asked to avoid interview respondents becoming uncomfortable or anxious.

This is especially true in studies that involve children, people in conflict zones, and other vulnerable populations. The interviewer should take great care to balance data collection with the responsibility of protecting the well-being of their research participants.

Informed consent with interview respondents

In terms of addressing ethical considerations , the researcher should also ensure that they receive participants' consent before collecting any data . Informed consent is a crucial standard in research involving human participants, and it involves both the interviewer and interview respondent being cognizant of the purpose of the study, the procedures taken during the interview, and the measures in place to preserve the respondent's privacy and personal data .

Especially with respect to interviews that collect open-ended data from participants, researchers should ensure that respondents have an in-depth understanding of the interview study in which they are participating.

Preparing semi-structured interviews for analysis

Unlike interviews for news outlets or entertainment programs, the interview research process doesn't end at the conclusion of the conversation with the participant. A research paper is not simply a reporting of what was said in an interview or set of interviews. Instead, the respondents' utterances should be carefully and rigorously analyzed to determine what themes and patterns arise from the data and how these relate to the research question guiding the study.

Transcription of interview recordings is a standard practice for analyzing interviews. You can either manually transcribe interviews, outsource transcription to a professional service, or use software that automates the process. Whatever you choose, make sure that the transcription is accurate and has the level of detail (e.g., thinking sounds, pauses) that you are looking for in your analysis.

Coding and analyzing semi-structured interviews

Qualitative data typically undergoes a coding process in which data segments are labeled with descriptive codes. These codes help to identify patterns in the data. Ultimately, the goal of coding is to help the researcher condense and organize the data to address their research objectives.

For semi-structured interviews, consider first coding every answer based on the questions in the interview guide. This will allow you to compare respondents' answers to the same interview questions when viewing and analyzing each question code later on. You can supplement these codes with interpretive codes based on emerging themes to further explore patterns across participants' experiences or perspectives.

Make the most of your interview research with ATLAS.ti

Easily organize and analyze interview research projects with our intuitive interface. Start with a free trial today.

tools4dev Practical tools for international development

How to Conduct and Analyze Semi-Structured Interviews

A semi-structured interview is one of the most effective tools for systematically gathering qualitative and quantitative data. This is a method which allows you to ask predetermined questions, determined, perhaps, by the theoretical framework or theory of change underpinning the project, or by your research hypothesis. It is also one which keeps questions open-ended, to gain a comprehensive view of surrounding information.

Before the semi-structured interview

Selecting an appropriate sample size, or deciding whether to interview the complete treatment group are all important aspects of research design. To do this, you need to consider the characteristics and size of the entire treatment group, and then determine whether a representative sample would be best selected according to some of the attributes, or within sub-groups, or whether taking a randomized sample is best.

Interviewers should be trained, and understand the challenges with asking open ended questions; how to adhere to the research questions and seek specific information, while also not leading respondents to answer a specific way. Remaining engaged while taking notes, and establishing rapport are also important aspects of a good interview technique.

After the semi-structured interview

Once the interviews have been conducted, knowing what to do with this data is key. There are a range of different analytic methods which could be applied to qualitative data, and choosing the right one will depend on the research you are conducting. By definition, qualitative data is categorical, thus, you should already have some idea of the different categories you are working with, and what “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” might mean in the context of the theory for a given question. Coding and sorting your data to give it meaning is key to a sound analysis. As you designed the questionnaire, you will already have an idea of the value you place on different responses, and what constitutes an improvement in your ordinal data. You will also want to keep track of some of the classification variables which might hold explanatory power in the differences in outcomes, such as gender or age.

Clean the data

You will likely need to spend some time cleaning the data, particularly the ‘open-ended’ questions where the answers may be long, and differ from person to person. If you have had a range of interviewers, you may want to spend some time just reading through all the data to try and gain a consistent view of the picture being painted by the data before beginning with the analysis. Never underestimate the power of ‘eye-balling’ your data. Give it a good read, and long think before commencing with any number-crunching.

Define clear questions

For your more defined questions, it may be simple to represent the findings. Say, for example, you are trying to ascertain the level of resources, and their use across a group of early childhood development centers, some of your questions will ask directly the number of books, toys or games available. This is quantitative information easily shown. You could graph the number of ECD centers which have between 0 – 5 resources, 5 – 10, or more than 10. If you then want to comment on the quality of these resources, you may have your interviewer observe their quality across ranked categories such as ‘new and in excellent condition’; ‘well-used but still with useful life’; illegible, parts missing, very old’. This might be done in conversation with the interviewee, the ECD center worker to ascertain their understanding of the importance of quality and engaging resources. From this data you can easily determine the overall resource need by determining how many of the centers require resources supplementation, but you may wish to apply a deeper analysis to how these resources are perceived by ECD workers. Then there may be questions on use; the frequency and level of engagement. Where frequency may be easy to map (once again you could categorize frequencies and group centers accordingly), you may want to conduct some type of thematic or narrative analysis on the comments regarding how well the children engage with the resources. There will be layers of information. A thematic analysis will allow you to begin to gather themes across a range of comments. You might find themes around reasons why the young children are not engaging adequately such as feeling hungry or tired, or themes around how the significance of engagement is perceived by the ECD practitioners. There are softwares for conducting rigorous thematic analysis through word identification (narrative analysis), or in a small enough sample, you can identify the frequency of themes yourself.

Methods Map

Sage Publishers have a really useful guide, the ‘ Methods Map’ , for defining and mapping various research methods, which begins to guide you in the most appropriate one for your purpose. The map surrounding qualitative data analysis includes a range of analytic methods. From this resource, you can delve into the broader academic literature to understand how various methods may be implemented. Even when using deductive approaches, such as action research where you are not testing a theory, but rather gathering information to form one; approaches where your questions will be more open-ended, and adhere less to a stricture, you will want to systematically analyze the data from these interviews to develop a strong base of information.

If you have a good idea of the overall implementation and research questions you hope to answer as you design the interview, it will then be much easier to understand what to do with your data.  This is why framing your impact and researching methodologies for reaching this impact is such critical groundwork. Researching what ‘good’ looks like in the space that you’re working will assist you in developing appropriate categories for data collection, which are context relevant, and empirically proven. For example, if an empirical study finds that exercise 3 times a week improved well-being, and that frequency of exercise means certain things about mental wellness, and you’re running a program in community wellness, design your categories accordingly.

About Angela Biden

Related Articles

Apply now: Master of Science in Engineering, Sustainability and Health

15 May 2024

Top 10 Websites to find Monitoring and Evaluation Jobs

12 August 2023

Monitoring and Evaluation Tools for NGOs

6 August 2023

• Reviews / Why join our community?
• For companies
• Frequently asked questions

Semi-Structured Interviews

What are semi-structured interviews.

Semi-structured interviews are a research method that uses both predetermined questions and open-ended exploration to gain more in-depth insights into participants' perspectives, attitudes, and experiences.

• Transcript loading…

Semi-structured interviews are commonly used in social science research, market research, and other fields where an understanding of people's attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs is important.

Key Characteristics of Semi-Structured Interviews

Semi-structured interviews have several key characteristics that differentiate them from other types of interviews: 

The flexible nature allows researchers to dive deeper into a topic and adapt the interview based on new insights or issues. Unlike structured interviews, which rely on a fixed set of questions and responses, semi-structured interviews allow for more open-ended discussion, which can lead to unexpected insights and perspectives.

Their emphasis is on participant perspectives and experiences. Rather than simply gathering participant data or information, the purpose of semi-structured interviews is to understand how participants think and feel about particular topics or issues. This approach allows researchers to understand better the social and cultural contexts in which participants live and work.

They are often used in research projects that aim to generate new ideas or theories rather than test existing ones. Because they allow for open-ended discussion and exploration, they can effectively generate new insights into complex social phenomena.

Types of Questions for Semi-Structured Interviews

Semi-structured interviews use a combination of predetermined questions and open-ended exploration to learn more about participants' perspectives. There are three main categories of questions you can use:

Open-ended Questions: These are broad, general questions that allow participants to express their thoughts and feelings on a topic without restriction. Open-ended questions typically begin with phrases like "Tell me about..." or "How do you feel about...". These questions help encourage participants to share their experiences and perspectives in their own words.

Closed-ended Questions: Closed-ended questions are more specific and provide the participant with predetermined responses. These questions typically begin with phrases like "Do you agree or disagree with..." or "Which option best describes...". Closed-ended questions can help gather data on specific attitudes or behaviors.

Probing Questions: Probing questions are follow-up questions that aim to clarify or expand upon a participant's response. These questions typically begin with phrases like "Can you tell me more about..." or "Why do you think that is...". Probing questions can help a researcher to understand a participant's thought process or experience.

Steps to Conduct a Successful Semi-Structured Interview

Proper preparation is key to conducting successful semi-structured interviews. Below are some tips for preparing for your interviews:

Define Your Research Questions: Before conducting interviews, it's important to understand your research questions and objectives clearly. This will help you develop a set of initial questions to guide your interview process.

Develop an Interview Guide: An interview guide is a list of questions and prompts designed to elicit information from participants. It should include open-ended and closed-ended questions and probing questions to encourage participants to elaborate on their responses.

Pilot Test Your Interview Guide: It's important to pilot test your interview guide with a small group of participants before conducting full-scale interviews. This will allow you to identify potential issues or areas where the questions must be revised.

Identify and Recruit Participants: Ensure that your sample is representative of the population you are studying. Consider using targeted sampling methods, such as snowball sampling or maximum variation sampling, to recruit participants who can provide diverse perspectives.

Schedule Interviews: Once you've identified and recruited participants, it's time to schedule interviews. Be sure to allow adequate time between interviews for transcription and analysis.

Conduct Interviews: During the interview process, it's important to establish rapport with participants and create a comfortable environment where they feel safe sharing their experiences and opinions. Be sure to follow your interview guide while allowing flexibility in response to unexpected information during the discussion.

Provide Compensation or Incentives to Participants: Consider offering compensation or incentives to participants to encourage their participation. Compensation can come in many forms, such as gift cards, cash, or vouchers. It can also be non-monetary, such as offering participants the opportunity to receive a summary of the study's findings or the chance to participate in future research projects. Compensation or incentives can help to show participants that their time and contributions are valued and appreciated.

Plan your research with this helpful checklist . Then, get ready to conduct semi-structured interviews! Download this template for help in creating different types of interview questions. 

Learn More about Semi Structured Interviews

Take our course on User Research – Methods and Best Practices. 

Read more about the process of conducting semi-structured interviews .

Learn how to analyze the data from your semi-structured interviews .  

Read this reflection on semi-structured interviews as a research instrument .  

Learn how to use the snowball sampling method to recruit participants.

Do you need more diversity in your study? Try maximum variation sampling .

Literature on Semi-Structured Interviews

Here’s the entire UX literature on Semi-Structured Interviews by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Semi-Structured Interviews

Take a deep dive into Semi-Structured Interviews with our course User Research – Methods and Best Practices .

How do you plan to design a product or service that your users will love , if you don't know what they want in the first place? As a user experience designer, you shouldn't leave it to chance to design something outstanding; you should make the effort to understand your users and build on that knowledge from the outset. User research is the way to do this, and it can therefore be thought of as the largest part of user experience design .

In fact, user research is often the first step of a UX design process—after all, you cannot begin to design a product or service without first understanding what your users want! As you gain the skills required, and learn about the best practices in user research, you’ll get first-hand knowledge of your users and be able to design the optimal product—one that’s truly relevant for your users and, subsequently, outperforms your competitors’ .

This course will give you insights into the most essential qualitative research methods around and will teach you how to put them into practice in your design work. You’ll also have the opportunity to embark on three practical projects where you can apply what you’ve learned to carry out user research in the real world . You’ll learn details about how to plan user research projects and fit them into your own work processes in a way that maximizes the impact your research can have on your designs. On top of that, you’ll gain practice with different methods that will help you analyze the results of your research and communicate your findings to your clients and stakeholders—workshops, user journeys and personas, just to name a few!

By the end of the course, you’ll have not only a Course Certificate but also three case studies to add to your portfolio. And remember, a portfolio with engaging case studies is invaluable if you are looking to break into a career in UX design or user research!

We believe you should learn from the best, so we’ve gathered a team of experts to help teach this course alongside our own course instructors. That means you’ll meet a new instructor in each of the lessons on research methods who is an expert in their field—we hope you enjoy what they have in store for you!

All open-source articles on Semi-Structured Interviews

How to do a thematic analysis of user interviews.

• 1.2k shares
• 3 years ago

Pros and Cons of Conducting User Interviews

How to Moderate User Interviews

• 4 years ago

Open Access—Link to us!

We believe in Open Access and the  democratization of knowledge . Unfortunately, world-class educational materials such as this page are normally hidden behind paywalls or in expensive textbooks.

If you want this to change , cite this page , link to us, or join us to help us democratize design knowledge !

Privacy Settings

Our digital services use necessary tracking technologies, including third-party cookies, for security, functionality, and to uphold user rights. Optional cookies offer enhanced features, and analytics.

Experience the full potential of our site that remembers your preferences and supports secure sign-in.

Governs the storage of data necessary for maintaining website security, user authentication, and fraud prevention mechanisms.

Enhanced Functionality

Saves your settings and preferences, like your location, for a more personalized experience.

Referral Program

We use cookies to enable our referral program, giving you and your friends discounts.

Error Reporting

We share user ID with Bugsnag and NewRelic to help us track errors and fix issues.

Optimize your experience by allowing us to monitor site usage. You’ll enjoy a smoother, more personalized journey without compromising your privacy.

Analytics Storage

Collects anonymous data on how you navigate and interact, helping us make informed improvements.

Differentiates real visitors from automated bots, ensuring accurate usage data and improving your website experience.

Lets us tailor your digital ads to match your interests, making them more relevant and useful to you.

Advertising Storage

Stores information for better-targeted advertising, enhancing your online ad experience.

Personalization Storage

Permits storing data to personalize content and ads across Google services based on user behavior, enhancing overall user experience.

Advertising Personalization

Allows for content and ad personalization across Google services based on user behavior. This consent enhances user experiences.

Enables personalizing ads based on user data and interactions, allowing for more relevant advertising experiences across Google services.

Receive more relevant advertisements by sharing your interests and behavior with our trusted advertising partners.

Enables better ad targeting and measurement on Meta platforms, making ads you see more relevant.

Allows for improved ad effectiveness and measurement through Meta’s Conversions API, ensuring privacy-compliant data sharing.

LinkedIn Insights

Tracks conversions, retargeting, and web analytics for LinkedIn ad campaigns, enhancing ad relevance and performance.

LinkedIn CAPI

Enhances LinkedIn advertising through server-side event tracking, offering more accurate measurement and personalization.

Google Ads Tag

Tracks ad performance and user engagement, helping deliver ads that are most useful to you.

Share Knowledge, Get Respect!

or copy link

Cite according to academic standards

Simply copy and paste the text below into your bibliographic reference list, onto your blog, or anywhere else. You can also just hyperlink to this page.

New to UX Design? We’re Giving You a Free ebook!

Download our free ebook The Basics of User Experience Design to learn about core concepts of UX design.

In 9 chapters, we’ll cover: conducting user interviews, design thinking, interaction design, mobile UX design, usability, UX research, and many more!

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

The use of semi-structured interviews in qualitative research: strengths and weaknesses

What needs to be considered before collecting data through semi-structured interviews? How does thinking about analysis before questioning help or hinder interviewing practice? How should the strengths and weaknesses of the method be evaluated? To cite this paper: Newton, Nigel (2010) The use of semi-structured interviews in qualitative research: strengths and weaknesses. Paper submitted in part completion of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Bristol. Retrieved online at http://www.academia.edu/1561689/The_use_of_semi-structured_interviews_in_qualitative_research_strengths_and_weaknesses on [date accessed]

Related Papers

Cathy Solomon

James Bayani

Research Aim Investigation exploring how and why the UK government currently use social media twitter to engage with UK citizens, through analysing the @number10gov twitter page. Objectives Investigate and develop a framework for the style of tweets that exists within the @number10gov twitter page Investigate how UK citizens on twitter use tools to engage in political debate Discover to what level people engage with tweets made by @number10gov Develop an understanding of why the current government use twitter

British Educational Research Journal

ELENA NARDI , Susan Steward

British Journal of Management

Paul Tosey , James Lawley , Rupert Meese

This paper shows how an innovative method of questioning called Clean Language can enhance the authenticity and rigour of interview-based qualitative research. We investigate the specific potential of Clean Language as a method for eliciting naturally occurring metaphors in order to provide in-depth understanding of a person's symbolic world; despite substantial interest in metaphors in the field of organizational and management research there is a lack of explicit, systematic methods for eliciting naturally occurring metaphors. We also demonstrate how Clean Language can improve qualitative research more widely by addressing the propensity for researchers inadvertently to introduce extraneous metaphors into an interviewee's account at both data collection and interpretation stages. Data are presented from a collaborative academic–practitioner project in which Clean Language was used as a method of interviewing to elicit the metaphors of six mid-career managers, relating to the way they experienced work–life balance. The first contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of Clean Language for eliciting naturally occurring metaphors in order to provide in-depth understanding of a person's symbolic world. The second contribution is to show how Clean Language can enhance the rigour and authenticity of interview-based qualitative research more widely.

Bill Brodie

This research focuses on language learning motivations within a group of 820 trainee teachers of English in the German Federal State of Brandenburg between the years 1994 and 2000. The unique social and political situation in former East Germany post-1989 engendered a fascinating spectrum of motivational mixtures among these participants - from pure intrinsic interest in learning English at one end to fear of redundancy at the other due to falling birth rates and the threatened disappearance of previous subject specialisms. Motivational mixtures among this target group were researched using constructs and research instruments that draw on a number of previous research models – integrative/instrumental and intrinsic/extrinsic paradigms, as well as a range of socio-cognitive heuristics. In response to calls from recent researchers such as Oxford and Dörnyei, this study researches motivation as a multi-faceted phenomenon requiring the researcher to get beyond the limitations of one or other particular motivational model which may tend to oversimplify motivational complexities. There is also increasing awareness among researchers that motivation is not a static phenomenon but changes over time with circumstances. This study, while not strictly speaking longitudinal, has a longitudinal aspect. I have attempted to trace the development of motivational mixtures during pre-actional, actional and post-actional phases of a three-year commitment by participants to the English retraining programme. In particular, I have used this multi-factorial and quasi-longitudinal approach to ascertain the range of mixtures of motivations within the target sample. I found that most participants undertook the English retraining programme with varied motivations reflecting intrinsic interest and significant external pressures. I then sought to analyse whether intrinsic motivation levels waned during the actional phase under the sheer pressures of involvement in the programme. On the contrary, results of this research have suggested that intrinsic motivation grew stronger across the group at large. In the post-actional phase, this increased motivation in at least 90% of the sample led to a generally positive commitment to ongoing linguistic improvement and to using English for pleasure and professional purposes. The State-institutionalised retraining scheme was a success achieved at considerable personal cost by participants - but real, personalised and lasting motivation among the participants was not part of the sacrifice. Most interestingly, it emerges in this research that different types of motivation seemed to fuse in individuals’ experience - particularly under sustained pressure. It proved necessary to use a wide range of motivational constructs and terminology to map out the diverse motivational components within the sample, but interview statements seem to point to a blending of motivations that transcends even this multi-factorial approach. “Personal interest” which began as intrinsic interest in English itself, was seen to fuse with instrumental sources of motivation and, when under pressure, to be fired by something even more deep-seated - a raw, primal motivation best summed up in the phrase “This is not going to beat me.” It emerges therefore that motivational complexities may be misleadingly interpreted if we do not perceive how new compounds evolve in each individual as a result of blending motivations across time and under pressure. Just as water is more than a combination of its separate components, hydrogen and oxygen, motivation may be described by analysing its individual components, but the whole is always more - and other – than the sum of the parts. This result underlines the need to be careful not to channel motivation research findings into too narrow categories based on traditional models of motivational theory, and points to the need for further research to establish more subtle, differentiated and individualised profiles of motivational mixtures within groups and individuals.

Tamjid Mujtaba , Michael J Reiss , Melissa Rodd

This is the third of three papers conducted as part of the Understanding Participation rates in post-16 Mathematics And Physics (UPMAP) project. The question ‗How do young people make the subject choices they do?&#x27; is central to our project: Understanding Participation rates in post-16 Mathematics And Physics (UPMAP). In this paper, we make the claim that young people can and do resist expectations and make unexpected or even unwelcome subject choices at 16 or at 18 years of age. The paper is organised around analysis of interview data from ...

Luz Sarmiento Oliveros

Barbara Kamler

STEVEN ALBURY

RELATED PAPERS

Michael J Reiss

Frank Sligo , Fiona Shearer

(Part V: Chapter 2). In Cooper, H., Camic, P.M. , Long, D.L., Panter, A.T., Rindskopf, D., Sher, K.J. (Eds.), American Psychological Association Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology (Vols 1-3). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Anna Madill

Andrea Cangialosi

David Balwanz

Educational Studies in …

Paul Hernandez-Martinez , Julian Williams

Dr. Rosemarie Stolte-Kletke

Brendan K O'Rourke

Educational Studies in Mathematics

Amanda Hunn

Kirsty Whitman

James Lawley , Rupert Meese , Wendy Sullivan

Jacob S Whittingham

Nigel Mathers

Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Widad Sirkhotte

Mari Chikvaidze

Communication Methods and Measures

Jessica S Robles

Sharlene Hesse-Biber

Robert Tobias

Qualitative Research

Susan Condor

Bogdan Bulbic

International Journal of Dissertation Research in Education

Peter Zitko

Michelle B Gabriel

Research in Science Education

Pamela Mulhall

Michael David William Richards

Anita Perkins

Annie Irvine

Wênia Xavier

Phenomenography, Philosophy and Practice

Christine Susan Bruce

Ruth Gwernan-Jones

Nicholas Morgan

A Study of Parents' Conceptions of their Roles as Home Educators of their Children

Terry Harding

FS Thompson

Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research

Yew-jin Lee

Yanuar Kartika Sari

Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice

Sheila Hollins , Valerie Sinason

Adam Lefstein

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• J Basic Clin Pharm
• v.5(4); September 2014-November 2014

Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation

Shazia jamshed.

Department of Pharmacy Practice, Kulliyyah of Pharmacy, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan Campus, Pahang, Malaysia

Buckley and Chiang define research methodology as “a strategy or architectural design by which the researcher maps out an approach to problem-finding or problem-solving.”[ 1 ] According to Crotty, research methodology is a comprehensive strategy ‘that silhouettes our choice and use of specific methods relating them to the anticipated outcomes,[ 2 ] but the choice of research methodology is based upon the type and features of the research problem.[ 3 ] According to Johnson et al . mixed method research is “a class of research where the researcher mixes or combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods, approaches, theories and or language into a single study.[ 4 ] In order to have diverse opinions and views, qualitative findings need to be supplemented with quantitative results.[ 5 ] Therefore, these research methodologies are considered to be complementary to each other rather than incompatible to each other.[ 6 ]

Qualitative research methodology is considered to be suitable when the researcher or the investigator either investigates new field of study or intends to ascertain and theorize prominent issues.[ 6 , 7 ] There are many qualitative methods which are developed to have an in depth and extensive understanding of the issues by means of their textual interpretation and the most common types are interviewing and observation.[ 7 ]

Interviewing

This is the most common format of data collection in qualitative research. According to Oakley, qualitative interview is a type of framework in which the practices and standards be not only recorded, but also achieved, challenged and as well as reinforced.[ 8 ] As no research interview lacks structure[ 9 ] most of the qualitative research interviews are either semi-structured, lightly structured or in-depth.[ 9 ] Unstructured interviews are generally suggested in conducting long-term field work and allow respondents to let them express in their own ways and pace, with minimal hold on respondents’ responses.[ 10 ]

Pioneers of ethnography developed the use of unstructured interviews with local key informants that is., by collecting the data through observation and record field notes as well as to involve themselves with study participants. To be precise, unstructured interview resembles a conversation more than an interview and is always thought to be a “controlled conversation,” which is skewed towards the interests of the interviewer.[ 11 ] Non-directive interviews, form of unstructured interviews are aimed to gather in-depth information and usually do not have pre-planned set of questions.[ 11 ] Another type of the unstructured interview is the focused interview in which the interviewer is well aware of the respondent and in times of deviating away from the main issue the interviewer generally refocuses the respondent towards key subject.[ 11 ] Another type of the unstructured interview is an informal, conversational interview, based on unplanned set of questions that are generated instantaneously during the interview.[ 11 ]

In contrast, semi-structured interviews are those in-depth interviews where the respondents have to answer preset open-ended questions and thus are widely employed by different healthcare professionals in their research. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews are utilized extensively as interviewing format possibly with an individual or sometimes even with a group.[ 6 ] These types of interviews are conducted once only, with an individual or with a group and generally cover the duration of 30 min to more than an hour.[ 12 ] Semi-structured interviews are based on semi-structured interview guide, which is a schematic presentation of questions or topics and need to be explored by the interviewer.[ 12 ] To achieve optimum use of interview time, interview guides serve the useful purpose of exploring many respondents more systematically and comprehensively as well as to keep the interview focused on the desired line of action.[ 12 ] The questions in the interview guide comprise of the core question and many associated questions related to the central question, which in turn, improve further through pilot testing of the interview guide.[ 7 ] In order to have the interview data captured more effectively, recording of the interviews is considered an appropriate choice but sometimes a matter of controversy among the researcher and the respondent. Hand written notes during the interview are relatively unreliable, and the researcher might miss some key points. The recording of the interview makes it easier for the researcher to focus on the interview content and the verbal prompts and thus enables the transcriptionist to generate “verbatim transcript” of the interview.

Similarly, in focus groups, invited groups of people are interviewed in a discussion setting in the presence of the session moderator and generally these discussions last for 90 min.[ 7 ] Like every research technique having its own merits and demerits, group discussions have some intrinsic worth of expressing the opinions openly by the participants. On the contrary in these types of discussion settings, limited issues can be focused, and this may lead to the generation of fewer initiatives and suggestions about research topic.

Observation

Observation is a type of qualitative research method which not only included participant's observation, but also covered ethnography and research work in the field. In the observational research design, multiple study sites are involved. Observational data can be integrated as auxiliary or confirmatory research.[ 11 ]

Research can be visualized and perceived as painstaking methodical efforts to examine, investigate as well as restructure the realities, theories and applications. Research methods reflect the approach to tackling the research problem. Depending upon the need, research method could be either an amalgam of both qualitative and quantitative or qualitative or quantitative independently. By adopting qualitative methodology, a prospective researcher is going to fine-tune the pre-conceived notions as well as extrapolate the thought process, analyzing and estimating the issues from an in-depth perspective. This could be carried out by one-to-one interviews or as issue-directed discussions. Observational methods are, sometimes, supplemental means for corroborating research findings.

Log in using your username and password

• Search More Search for this keyword Advanced search
• Latest content
• Call for Papers
• BMJ Journals More You are viewing from: Google Indexer

You are here

• Volume 7, Issue 2
• Semistructured interviewing in primary care research: a balance of relationship and rigour
• Article Text
• Article info
• Citation Tools
• Rapid Responses
• Article metrics

• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2660-3358 Melissa DeJonckheere 1 and
• Lisa M Vaughn 2 , 3
• 1 Department of Family Medicine , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , Michigan , USA
• 2 Department of Pediatrics , University of Cincinnati College of Medicine , Cincinnati , Ohio , USA
• 3 Division of Emergency Medicine , Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center , Cincinnati , Ohio , USA
• Correspondence to Dr Melissa DeJonckheere; mdejonck{at}med.umich.edu

Semistructured in-depth interviews are commonly used in qualitative research and are the most frequent qualitative data source in health services research. This method typically consists of a dialogue between researcher and participant, guided by a flexible interview protocol and supplemented by follow-up questions, probes and comments. The method allows the researcher to collect open-ended data, to explore participant thoughts, feelings and beliefs about a particular topic and to delve deeply into personal and sometimes sensitive issues. The purpose of this article was to identify and describe the essential skills to designing and conducting semistructured interviews in family medicine and primary care research settings. We reviewed the literature on semistructured interviewing to identify key skills and components for using this method in family medicine and primary care research settings. Overall, semistructured interviewing requires both a relational focus and practice in the skills of facilitation. Skills include: (1) determining the purpose and scope of the study; (2) identifying participants; (3) considering ethical issues; (4) planning logistical aspects; (5) developing the interview guide; (6) establishing trust and rapport; (7) conducting the interview; (8) memoing and reflection; (9) analysing the data; (10) demonstrating the trustworthiness of the research; and (11) presenting findings in a paper or report. Semistructured interviews provide an effective and feasible research method for family physicians to conduct in primary care research settings. Researchers using semistructured interviews for data collection should take on a relational focus and consider the skills of interviewing to ensure quality. Semistructured interviewing can be a powerful tool for family physicians, primary care providers and other health services researchers to use to understand the thoughts, beliefs and experiences of individuals. Despite the utility, semistructured interviews can be intimidating and challenging for researchers not familiar with qualitative approaches. In order to elucidate this method, we provide practical guidance for researchers, including novice researchers and those with few resources, to use semistructured interviewing as a data collection strategy. We provide recommendations for the essential steps to follow in order to best implement semistructured interviews in family medicine and primary care research settings.

• qualitative research

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0

https://doi.org/10.1136/fmch-2018-000057

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request permissions.

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Introduction

Semistructured interviews can be used by family medicine researchers in clinical settings or academic settings even with few resources. In contrast to large-scale epidemiological studies, or even surveys, a family medicine researcher can conduct a highly meaningful project with interviews with as few as 8–12 participants. For example, Chang and her colleagues, all family physicians, conducted semistructured interviews with 10 providers to understand their perspectives on weight gain in pregnant patients. 1 The interviewers asked questions about providers’ overall perceptions on weight gain, their clinical approach to weight gain during pregnancy and challenges when managing weight gain among pregnant patients. Additional examples conducted by or with family physicians or in primary care settings are summarised in table 1 . 1–6

• View inline

Examples of research articles using semistructured interviews in primary care research

From our perspective as seasoned qualitative researchers, conducting effective semistructured interviews requires: (1) a relational focus, including active engagement and curiosity, and (2) practice in the skills of interviewing. First, a relational focus emphasises the unique relationship between interviewer and interviewee. To obtain quality data, interviews should not be conducted with a transactional question-answer approach but rather should be unfolding, iterative interactions between the interviewer and interviewee. Second, interview skills can be learnt. Some of us will naturally be more comfortable and skilful at conducting interviews but all aspects of interviews are learnable and through practice and feedback will improve. Throughout this article, we highlight strategies to balance relationship and rigour when conducting semistructured interviews in primary care and the healthcare setting.

Qualitative research interviews are ‘attempts to understand the world from the subjects’ point of view, to unfold the meaning of peoples’ experiences, to uncover their lived world prior to scientific explanations’ (p 1). 7 Qualitative research interviews unfold as an interviewer asks questions of the interviewee in order to gather subjective information about a particular topic or experience. Though the definitions and purposes of qualitative research interviews vary slightly in the literature, there is common emphasis on the experiences of interviewees and the ways in which the interviewee perceives the world (see table 2 for summary of definitions from seminal texts).

Definitions of qualitative interviews

The most common type of interview used in qualitative research and the healthcare context is semistructured interview. 8 Figure 1 highlights the key features of this data collection method, which is guided by a list of topics or questions with follow-up questions, probes and comments. Typically, the sequencing and wording of the questions are modified by the interviewer to best fit the interviewee and interview context. Semistructured interviews can be conducted in multiple ways (ie, face to face, telephone, text/email, individual, group, brief, in-depth), each of which have advantages and disadvantages. We will focus on the most common form of semistructured interviews within qualitative research—individual, face-to-face, in-depth interviews.

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

Key characteristics of semistructured interviews.

Purpose of semistructured interviews

The overall purpose of using semistructured interviews for data collection is to gather information from key informants who have personal experiences, attitudes, perceptions and beliefs related to the topic of interest. Researchers can use semistructured interviews to collect new, exploratory data related to a research topic, triangulate other data sources or validate findings through member checking (respondent feedback about research results). 9 If using a mixed methods approach, semistructured interviews can also be used in a qualitative phase to explore new concepts to generate hypotheses or explain results from a quantitative phase that tests hypotheses. Semistructured interviews are an effective method for data collection when the researcher wants: (1) to collect qualitative, open-ended data; (2) to explore participant thoughts, feelings and beliefs about a particular topic; and (3) to delve deeply into personal and sometimes sensitive issues.

Designing and conducting semistructured interviews

In the following section, we provide recommendations for the steps required to carefully design and conduct semistructured interviews with emphasis on applications in family medicine and primary care research (see table 3 ).

Steps to designing and conducting semistructured interviews

Steps for designing and conducting semistructured interviews

Step 1: determining the purpose and scope of the study.

The purpose of the study is the primary objective of your project and may be based on an anecdotal experience, a review of the literature or previous research finding. The purpose is developed in response to an identified gap or problem that needs to be addressed.

Research questions are the driving force of a study because they are associated with every other aspect of the design. They should be succinct and clearly indicate that you are using a qualitative approach. Qualitative research questions typically start with ‘What’, ‘How’ or ‘Why’ and focus on the exploration of a single concept based on participant perspectives. 10

Step 2: identifying participants

After deciding on the purpose of the study and research question(s), the next step is to determine who will provide the best information to answer the research question. Good interviewees are those who are available, willing to be interviewed and have lived experiences and knowledge about the topic of interest. 11 12 Working with gatekeepers or informants to get access to potential participants can be extremely helpful as they are trusted sources that control access to the target sample.

Sampling strategies are influenced by the research question and the purpose of the study. Unlike quantitative studies, statistical representativeness is not the goal of qualitative research. There is no calculation of statistical power and the goal is not a large sample size. Instead, qualitative approaches seek an in-depth and detailed understanding and typically use purposeful sampling. See the study of Hatch for a summary of various types of purposeful sampling that can be used for interview studies. 12

‘How many participants are needed?’ The most common answer is, ‘it depends’—it depends on the purpose of the study, what kind of study is planned and what questions the study is trying to answer. 12–14 One common standard in qualitative sample sizes is reaching thematic saturation, which refers to the point at which no new thematic information is gathered from participants. Malterud and colleagues discuss the concept of information power , or a qualitative equivalent to statistical power, to determine how many interviews should be collected in a study. They suggest that the size of a sample should depend on the aim, homogeneity of the sample, theory, interview quality and analytic strategy. 14

Step 3: considering ethical issues

An ethical attitude should be present from the very beginning of the research project even before you decide who to interview. 15 This ethical attitude should incorporate respect, sensitivity and tact towards participants throughout the research process. Because semistructured interviewing often requires the participant to reveal sensitive and personal information directly to the interviewer, it is important to consider the power imbalance between the researcher and the participant. In healthcare settings, the interviewer or researcher may be a part of the patient’s healthcare team or have contact with the healthcare team. The researchers should ensure the interviewee that their participation and answers will not influence the care they receive or their relationship with their providers. Other issues to consider include: reducing the risk of harm; protecting the interviewee’s information; adequately informing interviewees about the study purpose and format; and reducing the risk of exploitation. 10

Step 4: planning logistical aspects

Careful planning particularly around the technical aspects of interviews can be the difference between a great interview and a not so great interview. During the preparation phase, the researcher will need to plan and make decisions about the best ways to contact potential interviewees, obtain informed consent, arrange interview times and locations convenient for both participant and researcher, and test recording equipment. Although many experienced researchers have found themselves conducting interviews in less than ideal locations, the interview location should avoid (or at least minimise) interruptions and be appropriate for the interview (quiet, private and able to get a clear recording). 16 For some research projects, the participants’ homes may make sense as the best interview location. 16

Initial contacts can be made through telephone or email and followed up with more details so the individual can make an informed decision about whether they wish to be interviewed. Potential participants should know what to expect in terms of length of time, purpose of the study, why they have been selected and who will be there. In addition, participants should be informed that they can refuse to answer questions or can withdraw from the study at any time, including during the interview itself.

Audio recording the interview is recommended so that the interviewer can concentrate on the interview and build rapport rather than being distracted with extensive note taking 16 (see table 4 for audio-recording tips). Participants should be informed that audio recording is used for data collection and that they can refuse to be audio recorded should they prefer.

Suggestions for successful audio recording of interviews

Most researchers will want to have interviews transcribed verbatim from the audio recording. This allows you to refer to the exact words of participants during the analysis. Although it is possible to conduct analyses from the audio recordings themselves or from notes, it is not ideal. However, transcription can be extremely time consuming and, if not done yourself, can be costly.

In the planning phase of research, you will want to consider whether qualitative research software (eg, NVivo, ATLAS.ti, MAXQDA, Dedoose, and so on) will be used to assist with organising, managing and analysis. While these tools are helpful in the management of qualitative data, it is important to consider your research budget, the cost of the software and the learning curve associated with using a new system.

Step 5: developing the interview guide

Semistructured interviews include a short list of ‘guiding’ questions that are supplemented by follow-up and probing questions that are dependent on the interviewee’s responses. 8 17 All questions should be open ended, neutral, clear and avoid leading language. In addition, questions should use familiar language and avoid jargon.

Most interviews will start with an easy, context-setting question before moving to more difficult or in-depth questions. 17 Table 5 gives details of the types of guiding questions including ‘grand tour’ questions, 18 core questions and planned and unplanned follow-up questions.

Questions and prompts in semistructured interviewing

To illustrate, online supplementary appendix A presents a sample interview guide from our study of weight gain during pregnancy among young women. We start with the prompt, ‘Tell me about how your pregnancy has been so far’ to initiate conversation about their thoughts and feelings during pregnancy. The subsequent questions will elicit responses to help answer our research question about young women’s perspectives related to weight gain during pregnancy.

Supplemental material

After developing the guiding questions, it is important to pilot test the interview. Having a good sense of the guide helps you to pace the interview (and not run out of time), use a conversational tone and make necessary adjustments to the questions.

Like all qualitative research, interviewing is iterative in nature—data collection and analysis occur simultaneously, which may result in changes to the guiding questions as the study progresses. Questions that are not effective may be replaced with other questions and additional probes can be added to explore new topics that are introduced by participants in previous interviews. 10

Step 6: establishing trust and rapport

Interviews are a special form of relationship, where the interviewer and interviewee converse about important and often personal topics. The interviewer must build rapport quickly by listening attentively and respectfully to the information shared by the interviewee. 19 As the interview progresses, the interviewer must continue to demonstrate respect, encourage the interviewee to share their perspectives and acknowledge the sensitive nature of the conversation. 20

To establish rapport, it is important to be authentic and open to the interviewee’s point of view. It is possible that the participants you recruit for your study will have preconceived notions about research, which may include mistrust. As a result, it is important to describe why you are conducting the research and how their participation is meaningful. In an interview relationship, the interviewee is the expert and should be treated as such—you are relying on the interviewee to enhance your understanding and add to your research. Small behaviours that can enhance rapport include: dressing professionally but not overly formal; avoiding jargon or slang; and using a normal conversational tone. Because interviewees will be discussing their experience, having some awareness of contextual or cultural factors that may influence their perspectives may be helpful as background knowledge.

Step 7: conducting the interview

Location and set-up.

The interview should have already been scheduled at a convenient time and location for the interviewee. The location should be private, ideally with a closed door, rather than a public place. It is helpful if there is a room where you can speak privately without interruption, and where it is quiet enough to hear and audio record the interview. Within the interview space, Josselson 15 suggests an arrangement with a comfortable distance between the interviewer and interviewee with a low table in between for the recorder and any materials (consent forms, questionnaires, water, and so on).

Beginning the interview

Many interviewers start with chatting to break the ice and attempt to establish commonalities, rapport and trust. Most interviews will need to begin with a brief explanation of the research study, consent/assent procedures, rationale for talking to that particular interviewee and description of the interview format and agenda. 11 It can also be helpful if the interviewer shares a little about who they are and why they are interested in the topic. The recording equipment should have already been tested thoroughly but interviewers may want to double-check that the audio equipment is working and remind participants about the reason for recording.

Interviewer stance

During the interview, the interviewer should adopt a friendly and non-judgemental attitude. You will want to maintain a warm and conversational tone, rather than a rote, question-answer approach. It is important to recognise the potential power differential as a researcher. Conveying a sense of being in the interview together and that you as the interviewer are a person just like the interviewee can help ease any discomfort. 15

Active listening

During a face-to-face interview, there is an opportunity to observe social and non-verbal cues of the interviewee. These cues may come in the form of voice, body language, gestures and intonation, and can supplement the interviewee’s verbal response and can give clues to the interviewer about the process of the interview. 21 Listening is the key to successful interviewing. 22 Listening should be ‘attentive, empathic, nonjudgmental, listening in order to invite, and engender talk’ 15 15 (p 66). Silence, nods, smiles and utterances can also encourage further elaboration from the interviewee.

Continuing the interview

As the interview progresses, the interviewer can repeat the words used by the interviewee, use planned and unplanned follow-up questions that invite further clarification, exploration or elaboration. As DiCicco-Bloom and Crabtree 10 explain: ‘Throughout the interview, the goal of the interviewer is to encourage the interviewee to share as much information as possible, unselfconsciously and in his or her own words’ (p 317). Some interviewees are more forthcoming and will offer many details of their experiences without much probing required. Others will require prompting and follow-up to elicit sufficient detail.

As a result, follow-up questions are equally important to the core questions in a semistructured interview. Prompts encourage people to continue talking and they can elicit more details needed to understand the topic. Examples of verbal probes are repeating the participant’s words, summarising the main idea or expressing interest with verbal agreement. 8 11 See table 6 for probing techniques and example probes we have used in our own interviewing.

Probing techniques for semistructured interviews (modified from Bernard 30 )

Step 8: memoing and reflection

After an interview, it is essential for the interviewer to begin to reflect on both the process and the content of the interview. During the actual interview, it can be difficult to take notes or begin reflecting. Even if you think you will remember a particular moment, you likely will not be able to recall each moment with sufficient detail. Therefore, interviewers should always record memos —notes about what you are learning from the data. 23 24 There are different approaches to recording memos: you can reflect on several specific ideas, or create a running list of thoughts. Memos are also useful for improving the quality of subsequent interviews.

Step 9: analysing the data

The data analysis strategy should also be developed during planning stages because analysis occurs concurrently with data collection. 25 The researcher will take notes, modify the data collection procedures and write reflective memos throughout the data collection process. This begins the process of data analysis.

The data analysis strategy used in your study will depend on your research question and qualitative design—see the study of Creswell for an overview of major qualitative approaches. 26 The general process for analysing and interpreting most interviews involves reviewing the data (in the form of transcripts, audio recordings or detailed notes), applying descriptive codes to the data and condensing and categorising codes to look for patterns. 24 27 These patterns can exist within a single interview or across multiple interviews depending on the research question and design. Qualitative computer software programs can be used to help organise and manage interview data.

Step 10: demonstrating the trustworthiness of the research

Similar to validity and reliability, qualitative research can be assessed on trustworthiness. 9 28 There are several criteria used to establish trustworthiness: credibility (whether the findings accurately and fairly represent the data), transferability (whether the findings can be applied to other settings and contexts), confirmability (whether the findings are biased by the researcher) and dependability (whether the findings are consistent and sustainable over time).

Step 11: presenting findings in a paper or report

When presenting the results of interview analysis, researchers will often report themes or narratives that describe the broad range of experiences evidenced in the data. This involves providing an in-depth description of participant perspectives and being sure to include multiple perspectives. 12 In interview research, the participant words are your data. Presenting findings in a report requires the integration of quotes into a more traditional written format.

Conclusions

Though semistructured interviews are often an effective way to collect open-ended data, there are some disadvantages as well. One common problem with interviewing is that not all interviewees make great participants. 12 29 Some individuals are hard to engage in conversation or may be reluctant to share about sensitive or personal topics. Difficulty interviewing some participants can affect experienced and novice interviewers. Some common problems include not doing a good job of probing or asking for follow-up questions, failure to actively listen, not having a well-developed interview guide with open-ended questions and asking questions in an insensitive way. Outside of pitfalls during the actual interview, other problems with semistructured interviewing may be underestimating the resources required to recruit participants, interview, transcribe and analyse the data.

Despite their limitations, semistructured interviews can be a productive way to collect open-ended data from participants. In our research, we have interviewed children and adolescents about their stress experiences and coping behaviours, young women about their thoughts and behaviours during pregnancy, practitioners about the care they provide to patients and countless other key informants about health-related topics. Because the intent is to understand participant experiences, the possible research topics are endless.

Due to the close relationships family physicians have with their patients, the unique settings in which they work, and in their advocacy, semistructured interviews are an attractive approach for family medicine researchers, even if working in a setting with limited research resources. When seeking to balance both the relational focus of interviewing and the necessary rigour of research, we recommend: prioritising listening over talking; using clear language and avoiding jargon; and deeply engaging in the interview process by actively listening, expressing empathy, demonstrating openness to the participant’s worldview and thanking the participant for helping you to understand their experience.

Further Reading

Edwards R, & Holland J. (2013). What is qualitative interviewing?: A&C Black.

Josselson R. Interviewing for qualitative inquiry: A relational approach. Guilford Press, 2013.

Kvale S. InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. SAGE, London, 1996.

Pope C, & Mays N. (Eds). (2006). Qualitative research in health care.

• Gold KJ , et al
• Croxson CH ,
• Ashdown HF ,
• DeJonckheere M ,
• Robinson CH ,
• Evans L , et al
• Griffiths F ,
• Boardman F , et al
• Takemura Y ,
• Nishiue T , et al
• Schoenborn NL ,
• Pollack CE , et al
• Pietilä A-M ,
• Johnson M , et al
• Lincoln YS ,
• DiCicco-Bloom B ,
• Crabtree BF
• Malterud K ,
• Siersma VD ,
• Guassora AD
• Josselson R
• Edwards R ,
• Spradley JP
• Opdenakker R
• Anderson K ,
• Huberman AM
• Huberman AM ,
• Creswell JW
• Damschroder L

Contributors Both authors contributed equally to this work.

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests None declared.

Patient consent for publication Not required.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

Read the full text or download the PDF:

Interviews in qualitative research

Affiliation.

• 1 University of Western Sydney, Australia.
• PMID: 25783145
• DOI: 10.7748/nr.22.4.6.s2

Interviews are a common method of data collection in nursing research. They are frequently used alone in a qualitative study or combined with other data collection methods in mixed or multi-method research. Semi-structured interviews, where the researcher has some predefined questions or topics but then probes further as the participant responds, can produce powerful data that provide insights into the participants' experiences, perceptions or opinions.

• Interviews as Topic*
• Nursing Research*
• Qualitative Research*

Becoming a Purpose-Driven Firm

Practices and Drivers of Corporate Purpose

28 May 2024

She is conducting the research together with ABS researchers Prof. Henk Volberda and Dr Pushpika Vishwanathan. Prof. Jatinder Sidhu of Leeds University Business School is also involved in the project.

Why did you want to carry out this research?

In recent years there have been a lot of theoretical and empirical discussions about corporate purpose. These discussions include how companies can focus on both financial success and social goals at the same time. To add to this ongoing conversation, we're conducting a study focusing on prominent companies in the Netherlands. Our aim is to obtain qualitative insights into how high-profile organisations are making the strategic shift to becoming purpose-driven.

Why is it important (for society) to learn more about this?

Hybrid organisations choose or abandon some practices to balance both social and financial goals. However, for-profit firms, which usually prioritise financial objectives, often face challenges in creating social impact. For example, a typical challenge is sacrificing short-term profits. This makes the journey towards becoming purpose-driven more complicated. That’s why it’s important to explore the challenges for-profit firms face as they try to become more purpose-driven. This is especially important because purpose-driven companies can focus on long-term societal benefits and will eventually create more value for society and for their organisation.

How could it positively impact society?

By interviewing strategic leaders, employees, and external stakeholders, we gain a comprehensive understanding of corporate purpose from different perspectives. This will help us in providing insightful recommendations that are aligned with the challenges faced by business leaders. Also, this study will assist for-profit firms in getting a more balanced focus on how to pursue financial goals and social impact goals at the same time. We also believe that purpose-driven strategies offer important ways to achieve a sustainable economy, including a number of SDGs (United Nations Social Development Goals). Economic growth is essential. But it has to be achieved in ways that are inclusive and innovative, with a positive impact.

How are you carrying out this research?

We are studying 10 prominent Dutch companies: ABN AMRO, Heineken, KLM, NXP, Philips, Protix, PwC, Randstad, The Port of Rotterdam Authority, and Shell. Our aim is to provide a novel perspective on how and to what degree they are purpose-driven. We’re doing a qualitative analysis of archival data and 58 semi-structured interviews with the companies’ internal and external stakeholders. Based on this work, we will present a network of the drivers and practices that are key to having an explicit purpose orientation.

Could you share some first results?

Our findings shed light on why some companies embrace purpose wholeheartedly and why others sometimes struggle to effectively integrate it in their strategies. We identify internal and external factors that drive companies to develop a strong purpose that goes beyond maximising profits. Our study also identifies key strategies that have a significant impact on a company’s path to becoming more purpose oriented. In addition, we describe purpose journeys that for-profit firms can follow to become more purpose-driven. These are the initial results so far. We are still analysing our findings so I hope to provide more details soon in a follow-up article.

Cookie Consent

The UvA uses cookies to ensure the basic functionality of the site and for statistical and optimisation purposes. Cookies are also placed to display third-party content and for marketing purposes. Click 'Accept all cookies' to consent to the placement of all cookies, or choose 'Decline' to only accept functional and analytical cookies. Also read the UvA Privacy statement .