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Academic English & Research vocabulary · Research Design

Semi-structured interview

Meaning in academic english & research, with examples

nounCore term

In academic english & research, semi-structured interview means: An interview that follows a prepared list of questions but lets the researcher change the order and ask follow-up questions.

In Turkish: yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme

How it is used

The most common interview type in qualitative research. The question list is called an interview guide or protocol; follow-up questions are probes. Interviews are usually recorded with consent, transcribed and then coded.

Example sentences

  1. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 18 school principals.

  2. Each semi-structured interview lasted between 40 and 60 minutes.

Common collocations

  • conduct semi-structured interviews
  • interview guide
  • follow-up questions
  • in-depth interview
  • qualitativeDescribing research that studies experiences, meanings and behavior through words, images or observation rather than numbers, often with smaller groups of people.
  • transcribeTo write down exactly what was said in a recorded interview, focus group or conversation so that it can be analyzed.
  • codingIn qualitative research, the process of labeling parts of the data, such as sentences in interviews, with short codes that describe their meaning.
  • focus groupA guided group discussion in which a small number of participants talk about a topic so that researchers can study their shared and differing views.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Research Design

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