Examine both the advantages and disadvantages of using unstructured interviews with students to find out about the effects of a streaming education. “Steaming involves allocating pupils of similar ability to the same class for all or most lessons”-Item B. If you conducted unstructured interviews they would tend to be a quiet time consuming and expensive way of finding out about the effects of streaming. Another weakness is it can be hard to gain access to interview participants as they are hierarchical institutions the permission of the head, the local authority and parents may have to be gained. However, in a school if the head gives permission for you to do your study on effects on streaming he/she may be able to make sure that staff and students are able to give up their time to be able to talk to you. This is particularly important when using unstructured interviews as individuals in school are very time pressured and so might not be able to give up the time to discuss the issue with you. The problem with this is that you could end up with an unrepresentative sample as if the principle is worried that you might reveal some kind of streaming bias he may only allow you to interview staff and students that show his school in the best possible light.
One problem with doing research on young people is that they may be reluctant to fill in a questionnaire seriously and with younger children they may find it hard to express their opinions. One strength of using unstructured interviews is young people tend to express themselves verbally better than they do when writing so interviews will produce more valid data compared to questionnaires and also can be used with very young children who cannot read yet. This would tend to make your data more valid. What it also means is that you will be able to find out about the effects they feel they have from streaming in a more in-depth way and reveal an insider’s perspective. However, In contrast to this another problem is students may find it hard to stay to the point which will mean unstructured interviews may be time consuming and produce a lot of irrelevant data, this point would be more relevant to the lower streamed students as their attention span will be perhaps a lot shorter. They might not stay focused on the topic but chose to discuss other areas instead that they know more about. This makes the study more unreliable.
Another problem with using interviews is the interviewer has to be highly trained to get responses from students, this could mean the study will cost more due to the high level of expertise needed. This is linked to the fact problem is young interviewees may be inarticulate, not understand long questions, and have a short attention span or reluctant to talk. However, using when using an unstructured interview, this means they can be informal, young people are more likely to respond and be more open in a relaxed form, increasing rapport and the validity of the data. This is particularly the case as they might be embarrassed about saying that the wanted to do non-traditional subjects and were put off studying them, or even they might fear the they could get into trouble if they suggested that certain teachers discriminated against them when being streamed or in the classroom setting.
Another strength is of using unstructured interviews to study the effects of streaming, is that it allows the possibility of using group interviews. This may well produce valid data as they reproduce conditions students are used to when in school and in groups students may be more responsive in numbers compared to in a one to one interview. However, the problem of this is say when you are discussing streaming students in a group setting it may be embarrassing for some to talk about this as they may be aware of the label that they have been given, such as ‘lower student’ and they feel insecure and vulnerable to talk about this with a stranger i.e. the interviewer and their peers, this could lead to social desirability bias and students not being totally honest about what they feel on the effects of streaming. Using unstructured interviews also means you have the potential to reveal something new about streaming that you were not expecting to find out as there is no set questions so it could generate new insight into the topic. However, positivist sociologist would suggest unstructured interviews are unscientific, are subjective and impossible to compare. This might make it very difficult to make comparison which is something that a sociologist may be interested in as there are no set questions in the interview.
One final problem with interviews is interviewer bias. This is where the characteristics of the interviewer influence the answers of the respondents. This is particularly a problem when conducting interviews in school as students will always view adults as being associated with authority or as teachers. This could affect the validity of the research some students may give socially desirable answers, and suggest that there was no discrimination in the school in relation to streaming. While other students may demonstrate the ‘screw you effect’ and be openly hostile to the researcher and their aims and try and make out the effect of streaming is having a greater effect on them than it actually is. Another problem affecting the validity of the research is that as schools are very small, it may mean the contents of initial interviews influence subsequent ones as word get around reducing validity i.e. giving the same answers as your friends did.
In conclusion, integrationist sociologists would suggest that unstructured interviews provide a really good way of finding out in-depth, rich and valid insight into the effects of streaming on students. However, they are unscientific and difficult to analyse and compare which is perhaps one of the central things a sociologist might be interested in doing when looking at this topic.