An interview is a conversation between two or more people (the interviewer and the interviewee) where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.

 

A research interview is a structured social interaction between a researcher and a subject who is identified as a potential source of information, in which the interviewer initiates and controls the exchange to obtain quantifiable and comparable information relevant to an emerging or previously stated hypothesis.

Social research interview is part of Qualitative research methods, there are many type of interview methods to use, but the most commonly used are structured, semi structured and unstructured interviews, although a structured interview comes more under Quantitative research methods as it is more like a questionnaire. Unstructured interviews is when the researcher asks little questions and lets the interviewee do all the talking, to find out as much information as possible, this type of interview is also known as 'Life History' Interview and is the favoured approach for a history researcher, it attempts to achieve a Holistic understanding of the interviewees point of view. Semi Structured Interviews is perhaps the most commonly used interview technique in qualitative social research , the researcher will want to know certain information which can be compared and contrasted with information from other interviews, the researcher may produce an interview schedule which is a list of questions the researcher will want to find out from the interviewee

 

Key Informant Interviews