A researcher is designing a study to investigate how critical care nurses cope with workplace stress. To ensure both qualitative depth and a degree of standardization across participants, the researcher decides to use a semi-structured interview.
Which of the following descriptions illustrates the correct implementation of a semi-structured interview in this study?
The researcher starts with a single open-ended prompt—"Tell me about your experience working in critical care"—and allows the nurse's response to guide the entire conversation, asking follow-up questions dynamically without any pre-set list of topics or questions.
The researcher facilitates a guided discussion with a panel of six nurses simultaneously, encouraging them to interact, debate, and share collective experiences regarding shift patterns and burnout.
The researcher uses a set of ten pre-determined questions about coping mechanisms, asking them in the exact same sequence to every nurse, and strictly records the answers without asking any supplementary or probing questions.
The researcher prepares an interview guide with five core questions on stress management, but adapts the order of questions and asks spontaneous follow-up questions to explore unique personal experiences raised by each nurse.
644 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Research methods and techniques. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.