Using material from item C and elsewhere, assess the strengths and limitations of using structured interviews as a means of investigating substance abuse among homeless people (15 marks)

Structures interviews are interviews that involve asking people a set of fixed questions. There are many strengths of using structured interviews, for instance they produce useful quantitative data. However, they can have some negative features such the tendency towards social desirability.

One strength of structured interviews is that in terms of practicality, they are very cheap to conduct. For instance, in this context, it is useful because when dealing with homeless people, they may be found in different places: on the streets or in hostels as stated in item C. Therefore because not many resources are needed, it makes it cheaper to do and therefore easier to conducted in the different places that they can be found.
On the other hand, there are practical limitations, for instance they can be time consuming. Because a trained interviewer is needed to fill out the answers, this takes time and can effect how many people are interviewed. In the context here, it means that when an interviewer finds homeless people to interview, they many not be able to interview many people in one day because of how long the interviews many take particularly as they are covering as subject as sensitive as substance abuse.

Another strength of structured interviews in terms of ethics is that the interviewees give thee informed consent and are aware that they have the right not to answer any questions. The topic of substance abuse is a very sensitive and sometimes invasive topic of discussion and because of this people may not wish to answer any questions that they feel uncomfortable with. With stuctured interviews they can say to the interviewer that they do not wish to answer a question and