Outline and explain 2 advantages of using unstructured interviews in sociological research

Unstructured interviews are an interpretivist method that takes the form of an informal conversation and supplies qualitative data. It’s a micro approach which means that it looks at small-scale interactions between individuals. One advantage of using unstructured interviews is that they allow responses to be gathered from people who would otherwise be reluctant to provide honest responses. This is because they encourage the development of a rapport where the interviewee would be more comfortable sharing information. There’s a far less formal tone which encourages the subject to relax and be more open and honest. This is why feminists often favour this method. For example, Ann Oakley used it to gather data on pregnancy and childbirth, which many women may not want to talk about in a more formal setting. This increases the validity and depth of the results. They’re also overt, which means that the interviewer is able to be completely honest with the interviewee and the subject has given consent so there are no ethical issues.
Another reason is that unstructured interviews can also be very flexible.In structured interviews, the interviewer can only ask fixed questions. Informal interviews, on the other hand, don’t have to follow a certain path, meaning that the interview can be catered to each subject. It allows the complexities of the subject’s opinion to be explored in a lot more depth. This increases the validity of the interview and allows the interviewer to gain a wider range and deeper amount of data. However, a limit of this is that each interview will be very different, meaning they will be low in reliability and impossible to generalise.