Advantages and disadvantages of different interview types
Standardised, structured interviews:
Strength: ensures that questions are asked in the same way across a sample population by different interviewers.
Weakness: risk losing important, unanticipated, information
Guided or open ended interviews
Strength: keeps interaction focused, covering the same ground with respondent sets, while allowing individual experience to emerge
Weakness: cannot divert far, or long, from agenda without losing part of ‘the story’
Informal, conversational interview
Strength: allows the interviewer to respond quickly to individual difference and situational changes.
Weakness: a great deal of time is needed to get systematic information (Herriot Watt, 2000)
Click here to link to Financial Diaries, research work undertaken in Bangladesh within the context of Finance for the Poor and Poorest research project. The Financial Diaries are the result of 42 in-depth case studies undertaken via fortnightly interviews over one year, and incorporate a life history element.