Every participant is asked the same questions in the same order, so answers can be compared and counted.
- +Fits Positivist Epistemology, Critical Realist Epistemology
- –Tension with Phenomenological Epistemology
Key thinkers: Andrea Fontana, James Frey, Alan Bryman
The longer story
Structured interviews ask everyone the same questions in the same order with fixed response options. You sacrifice flexibility for comparability—what one person says can be directly compared to another. This enables quantification: how many said X? It's closer to a verbal questionnaire than a conversation. Works well for specific factual information or when you need to aggregate across many participants. Less useful for understanding complex meanings or discovering what you didn't know to ask.