First of all, when researching the importance of work in shaping people’s identity the researcher attempts to build a rapport, with the interviewee which allows them to create some sort of relationship bonding which enables them to trust one another. The interview therefore becomes like a flowing conversation, in Nayaks study: he wasn’t able to communicate/have access to the Charver Kids as ‘their school attendance was so poor’, Nayak was the able to use ‘his position as a resident in a rundown estate, near to one of the schools, which was associated with high unemployment and those labelled Charver kids’. This is useful to him as a sociologist as he his then able to explore their identity in a more clear and visible ‘view’, as at the school they would have felt intimated and less comfortable, having been in an area they are brought up of from gives them some stability and reassurance as the school would portray authority and power.
On the other hand, the results from semi-structured interviews may be false as during the interview, the interviewer may give out unintentional signals which the interviewee may follow as they may feel that they have to give answers expected by interviewer. This makes the interview very unreliable as well as another point being that it wouldn’t be easy to exactly repeat a focused interview, because firstly it is non-standardised questions meaning that the questions would be all different and you wouldn’t receive exact or similar answers.
The strengths of semi-structured interviews are that the researcher can prompt and probe deeper into the given situation. For example, the ‘Charvers had relied on the culture of the streets’, Nayak had probed this statement even thought his initial aim was to examine how the decline of traditional work and leisure lifestyles affects the younger generations lives, they responded by saying that it was part of their masculine status as ‘hard’ acts of violence and unlawful activities. The interviewer has the ability to explore areas suggested by the respondent's answers, picking-up information that had either not occurred to the interviewer or of which the interviewer had no prior knowledge. Therefore, with this type of interview the interviewers are able to ask more detailed questions of respondents’ situations and not adhere only to the interview guide. In addition, the researcher can explain or rephrase the questions if respondents are unclear about the questions.
The drawbacks are that inexperienced interviewers may not be able to ask prompt questions. If this is the case, some relevant data may not be gathered. In addition, inexperienced interviewers may not probe into a situation. For example, if the respondents do not know how to use computers and do not want to use them in language teaching, the interviewer needs to probe and find out the reasons and ask for explanations.
Another valid point would be that the interview can sometimes be a “second chance” to do something good for the interviewee; having been given the time to reflect on something they did, the interview might try to make sense of their behaviour by rationalising their deeds. The interview would be classed as invalid although they are not consciously lying (since they will believe what they are saying is true), but their explanation for their behaviour, with perception, may be very different from what they actually felt at the time. The Charvers, for example, may want to express feelings of guilt and remorseful for what they have done in the past (which they may genuinely feel) and this may be taken as evidence they accept the values of the society in which they live. On the other hand, this guilt may simply be an expression of what the interviewee believes the interviewer wants to hear and may not be useful to an extent for the interviewer’s purposes.