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therefore, a flexibility of approach is essential –
the interviewer must be able to alter and adapt
to changing situations which may arise during
the interview.
Depth interviews have been found to be
most beneficial where:
1 The discussion topic has the potential to be
embarrassing, stressful or of a confidential
nature.
2 There is a complex situation, and the need is
to uncover attitudes, motivations, beliefs or
feelings.
3 Peer pressure may cause respondents to act in
an atypical manner (e.g. when they admit to
subscribing to certain societal norms when, in
reality, they do not).
4 The interviewer needs to ascertain the
chronology or a case history of a certain
decision process (e.g. when trying to
understand complex buying behaviour
patterns).
5 The situation is new and/or complex and
exploration of a topic, rather than
measurement, is the prime objective.
The nature of the relationship between inter-
viewer and subject in an in-depth interview is
of prime importance; it is a one-to-one occasion,
with no third party to ‘protect’ either side.
Thus, the establishment of a good rapport is an
essential interviewer function, and questions
aimed at cementing the relationship should
come first. Then it is recommended that the
general questions gradually give way to the
specific, where the heart of the interview lies.
Advantages of individual interviews
Great depth/richness of data, with the ability to
attach, directly, an opinion to a single individ-
ual, something which may not be so easy in a
group discussion.
The lack of peer pressure allows respon-
dents to express unconventional, maybe anti-
social, opinions, without fear of sanctions,
mockery or embarrassment. Interviewers have
the opportunity to develop close rapport with
the subject, creating a level of trust which
should encourage a freer flow of valid and
useful information.Disadvantages of individual
interviews
They are very costly in terms of time/money,
both to conduct the interview and to analyse
the results, and because of this high cost, it is
usually possible only to work with small
samples, thus limiting the ability of the research
to generalize about the results.
There may be problems in finding inter-
viewers with the requisite skills.
Because of the highly personal nature of
the interchange between the interviewer and
the respondent, and because of the unknowable
amounts of subjectivity which may ‘colour’ the
proceedings, it may be difficult to compare the
information gathered by one interviewer with
that from another.Projective techniques
Appropriated from psychology/psychiatry,
projective techniques rely on the principle that
the way people organize and respond to rela-
tively ambiguous stimuli will give trained
observers an insight into the respondent’s
perceptions of the outside world and their
reactions to it.
Kidder (1981) says that projective tech-
niques are useful in:... encouraging in respondents a state of
freedom and spontaneity of expression where
there is reason to believe that respondents
cannot easily evaluate or describe their motiva-
tions or feelings or where topics on which a
respondent may hesitate to express their opin-
ions directly for fear of disapproval by the
investigator or when respondents are likely to
consider direct questions as an unwarranted
invasion of privacy or to find them threatening
for some reason.