✅ Strengths
- Follow-up questions let the researcher get more detailed answers.
- The interviewer can explain a question if the participant is confused.
- Useful for people who find writing difficult, such as young children.
Questionnaires and Interviews » Interviews
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Cambridge spec: 7.3.2, 7.3.3
- What an interview is and how it differs from a questionnaire
- Features of an interview: recording answers, follow-up questions and the effect of the interviewer
- Strengths and weaknesses of interviews
- How to choose between a questionnaire and an interview in a new scenario
In the last lesson you met the questionnaire, where participants read written questions and answer for themselves. This lesson looks at a second way of asking people questions: the interview. It is part of Paper 2 Section D, the non-experimental methods questions.
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Unlock This CourseWhat is an interview?
Imagine a researcher wants to know how teenagers feel on their first day at a new school. A written form might not capture much. It would be better to sit down with each student and simply ask them, then listen to what they say.
Key terms:
- Interview: a method of collecting data by asking verbal questions to participants.
The key word is verbal. The researcher (the interviewer) speaks the questions aloud and the participant answers out loud. This is the main difference from a questionnaire, where the questions are written and the participant answers on their own.
Learn this
Questionnaire = written questions. Interview = verbal (spoken) questions. If you remember just one difference, remember this one.
Features of an interview
Three features matter for your exam. Each one is a reason why interviews work differently from questionnaires.
🎙️ Recording answers
The interviewer has to keep a record of what the participant says. They might write notes or make an audio recording. Without a record, the researcher would forget important details.
❓ Follow-up questions
Because the interviewer is there in person, they can ask extra questions based on what the participant just said. This helps them to find out more.
👥 Effect of the interviewer
The interviewer is a real person. Their voice, face or behaviour can change how the participant answers.
Recording answers
In a questionnaire, the participant writes their own answers, so the record is made for the researcher. In an interview, the researcher must make the record. If they only write notes, they may miss things or write down only the parts they think are important. An audio recording keeps the whole answer, but it must be listened to or typed out afterwards, which takes time.
Follow-up questions
Worked example
A researcher asks a Year 7 student, "How did you feel on your first day at secondary school?"
The student answers, "A bit nervous, mostly because of lunchtime."
The researcher can now ask a follow-up question: "What was it about lunchtime that made you nervous?" The student might explain that they did not know where to sit. The researcher has learned something that was not in the original question.
With a questionnaire, the researcher cannot do this. The questions are fixed before anyone answers them, and the researcher is not there to ask more.
Follow-up questions also help if the participant does not understand a question. The interviewer can explain it in a different way, so the answer is more likely to be useful.
The effect of the interviewer
An interviewer is a person, and people affect each other. The way an interviewer looks, sounds or reacts may change what the participant says. This is called the effect of the interviewer.
- An interviewer who smiles and nods when a participant gives a certain answer may make them give more answers like it.
- A participant may not want to say embarrassing things to a person's face, so they give an answer that makes them look good instead. This is a socially desirable answer, which you met in the last lesson.
- A participant may behave differently with an interviewer who seems cold or unfriendly than with one who seems kind.
This is a problem because the data may then show what the participant thought the interviewer wanted to hear, not what they really think. It lowers how much we can trust the results.
Key terms:
- Follow-up question: an extra question the interviewer asks because of something the participant has just said.
- Effect of the interviewer: when the interviewer's behaviour or appearance changes how the participant answers.
You will learn about open and closed questions in the next lesson, which looks at how questions can be worded in both questionnaires and interviews.
Strengths and weaknesses
❌ Weaknesses
- The effect of the interviewer may change the answers.
- It takes a lot of time, because the researcher must speak to each person, so usually fewer people can take part.
- Participants may give socially desirable answers when speaking face to face.
- Recording and writing up the answers takes time and details can be missed.
Questionnaire or interview?
In the exam you may be given a new situation and asked which method suits it. Think about what the researcher needs.
📄 Choose a questionnaire when...
The researcher needs answers from a lot of people quickly and cheaply, and every person should get exactly the same questions.
💬 Choose an interview when...
The researcher wants detailed answers from a small number of people and wants to be able to ask more questions about what they say.
Applying it to a new scenario
Worked example
A researcher wants to find out why some teenagers decide to stop playing a team sport. The researcher plans to speak to eight teenagers who have recently left a football club.
Why use an interview? The reasons for quitting may be personal and different for each person. An interview lets the researcher ask follow-up questions, for example, "You said the training was boring. What would have made it better?"
Recording answers: the researcher could make an audio recording so that nothing the teenagers say is lost.
A weakness: a teenager may not want to admit to a stranger that they felt left out of the team, so they might give a different reason. This is the effect of the interviewer, and it means the data may not be honest.
Compare: a questionnaire could ask many more teenagers, but could not follow up on the answers, so the reasons would be less detailed.
Common mistakes
- Saying an interview is the same as a questionnaire read out loud. The big difference is that the interviewer can ask follow-up questions.
- Writing that an interview "is good because you can talk to people". Say what that allows: more detailed answers.
- Writing "the interviewer might be biased" with no explanation. Say how the interviewer changes the answer, for example by smiling at certain answers.
- Giving general points. In a scenario question, use the details given, such as who the participants are and what is being studied.
Exam-style question
A researcher wants to find out how students feel about starting a new school. The researcher decides to use interviews.
(a) Describe what is meant by an interview. [2 marks]
(b) Explain one reason why the researcher might use interviews rather than a questionnaire in this research. [2 marks]
(c) Explain one weakness of using interviews in this research. [2 marks]
Model answer
(a) An interview is a method of collecting data (1) by asking verbal questions to participants (1).
(b) The researcher can ask follow-up questions (1), so if a student says they felt nervous, the researcher can ask why and get more detailed answers than a questionnaire would give (1).
(c) The effect of the interviewer (1): a student might not want to admit to feeling scared in front of the interviewer, so they give an answer that makes them look good and the data is not honest (1).
Exam tip
When a question says "rather than a questionnaire", name what an interview can do that a questionnaire cannot. Follow-up questions are the strongest answer.