In-depth Interviews

In-depth interviews are a qualitative technique that allows exploring one or more themes deeper than common face to face interviews. The purpose of these last ones is essentially to quantify and the questions must follow a plan that allows this at the end, either with closed-ended and open or semi-open-ended questions for subsequent coding.

With this qualitative technique, although there is an interview guide, this is not closed, the interviewer may, according to their experience and in the course of the conversation adapt the script as a result of its interpretation. Being a qualitative technique, the main goal of this kind of research is to “understand” and / or “explain” some phenomenon or reality.

The exploratory nature of this type of interviews makes them suitable for any kind of research, but it is especially useful when investigating sensitive subjects or subjects where there is little knowledge about them. It is very difficult and risky to create a survey on a topic about which little is known.

In-depth interviews, as with all qualitative techniques, require extensive experience of interviewers, as they only have a common thread – the interview guide; interviewers can manage the flow of the interview and the questions themselves. And also require a great deal of experience of analysts transforming data collected in structured information because of its subjectivity. In this type of methodology, the interviewer and analyst, when they are not the same person, work in close collaboration.

Advantages:

. Allows to explore more sensitive and complex issues;
. Very useful in the study of subjects on which there is no prior knowledge;
. Deepening of knowledge in a particular subject;
. Complementary use with pre and post quantitative studies.