One-to-one conversations guided by a topic list, not a script. You follow up on what the participant raises.
- +Fits Interpretivist Epistemology, Constructivist Epistemology, Phenomenological Epistemology
- –Tension with Positivist Epistemology
Key thinkers: Steinar Kvale, Svend Brinkmann, Herbert Rubin
The longer story
Semi-structured interviews are conversations with purpose—you've got questions you want answered, but you're not reading from a script. There's a topic guide, a shape to the conversation, but you follow where the participant leads. That balance between structure and openness makes them the workhorse of qualitative research. The art is in probing—'tell me more about that,' 'what did you mean by...'—without leading. You're trying to understand how someone sees their world, so you need enough flexibility to discover what you didn't know to ask.