Blackwell Reference Online

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Interviewing is a methodology based on asking questions in order to gain information from the respondent. The interview may be structured, unstructured, and postmodern. Structured interview seeks information with an emphasis on measurement, unstructured interview stresses understanding the world of the respondent, and postmodern interview focuses on the negotiated interaction between interviewer and respondent. Interviewing first became popular in clinical diagnosing and in counseling; later, it was used in psychological testing. Charles Booth (1902–3) is credited as introducing interviewing to sociology, by embarking on a survey of social and economic conditions in London. Others followed, both in England and the US. Among the most notable early interview projects were Du Bois's (1899) study of Philadelphia and the Lynds's (1929, 1937) studies of Middletown. During World War II the impetus of interviewing was magnified by large-scale interviews of American military personnel, some of which was directed by Samuel Stouffer and titled The American Soldier . In the 1950s, interviewing in the form of quantitative research moved into academia and dominated it for the next three decades. Some of the most notable proponents of this methodology were Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton at the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University, Harry Field at the National Opinion ... log in or subscribe to read full text