Disadvantages Of Semi-Structured Interviews

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In the first place this research made use of qualitative instruments or techniques. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers and learners of selected schools. All questions that the participants had to answer addressed the learner/teachers beliefs of how the ANA test affected their learning/teaching process. Questioning was done in the same way and the researcher ensured that the conditions under which questioning took place were suitable by making proper appointments with the participants and choosing appropriate venues for the process. 4.7 DATA-COLLECTION TECHNIQUES This section gives a perspective on the use of interviews as data collection techniques. The section concludes with a detailed discussion of how the data were analysed. 4.7.1 Semi-structured interviews The semi-structured interview is a person-to-person conversation with the objective of exploring the research topic with the research …show more content…

Questions are usually open-ended but could also be closed (Wengraf 2001:5-10). The open questions allow the research participants to give detailed account of the research phenomenon (Denscombe 1998:163-192). The major advantage of a semi-structured interview is that the researcher can be in control of the interview process and can direct the focus of the interview; however, a semi-structured interview could limit the depth of information the participant is able to give, thus excluding important information (Wengraf 2001:5). The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews to obtain information on the state of ANA test in the grade 9 mathematic classroom. Open-ended questions were asked to allow the participants to give detailed answers and to share their opinions on the ANA tests. To guide the discussion, the researcher used an interview guide (See annexure A?) 4.8 DATA