Question

Tom is a counselor conducting an interview as part of his client Henry's, clinical assessment. Tom asks a list of standardized, predetermined questions about Henry's family background information about parents, siblings, divorces, grandparents, etc. When Henry answers "yes" to a question regarding a family history of mental disorders, counselor Tom decides to ask Henry additional questions, and they talk about this matter for around 5 minutes. What type of interview strategy is Tom most likely using?

Answer 1

Answer:

Semi-structured

Explanation:

A semi-structured interview is a type of interview in which the interviewer will ask about a series of predetermined topics (usually using a written interview guide) but the answers and list of topics are open-ended and they are subject to change, allowing for a more open discussion/exploration with the interviewee.

Semi-structured interviews allow to collect information about specific topics but also vary from person to person depending on the answers so the interviewer can also get some deeper answers/understanding of some topics with each different interviewee.

In this example, Tom asks a list of standardized questions but when Henry answers 'yes' to one of those, Tom decides to ask Henry additional questions about the matter. We can see that Tom has a predetermined list of questions and topics but when Tom answers 'yes', a more open discussion follows to obtain more information about the topic. Thus, this would be an example of a semi-structured interview.