Unstandardized interview
An unstandardized interview is a free interview or open conversation with an interview participant.
This type of interview is characterized by:
- a free wording of the questions by the interviewer and
- open answer options for the respondent.
The questions are adapted to the conversation partner or situation. Thus it is possible to control the course of information retrieval. The questionnaire is only a kind of interview guide without any fixed questions and a strict order of questions.
However, the interviewer has a large influence on the course of the interview and indirectly on the answers of the interview participant which may lead to the problem of response bias.
Unstandardized interviews are often used for expert surveys but also for in-depth interviews and focus groups.
See also:
Open-ended questions
Questionnaire
Interviewer bias
Expert survey
Focus group
Individual depth interview
