Structured Interview: A Sample to Practice

 

Aim: To understand the impact of corona virus in life of people by conducting structured interview

Corona virus became one of the major issue or can be say the only big issue right now for the life of people. Depending on the outbreak pattern of the virus, decisions are making for the people by government of India as well as of different countries. And as there is no antivirus has been discovered yet governments are applying the lockdown to keep people away from each other. As this way is thought to be the only way to maintain social distancing.

But the lockdown situation is giving birth to many problems from community to labour migration, from small market to industrial level, political, religious as well as in educational level. So the basic impacts are arising negatively or sometimes positively in the life of people. In previous practice, unstructured interview was taken from 20 individuals. Tried to understand the changes they are facing during present condition, the issues that are arising in their life from different dimensions. With the experience during that investigation and based on their answers this practice aims to understand or analyse the impacts structurally.

Limitation of the study :

                            For the present lockdown in the nation wide, it was not possible to sent the questionnaire to those people who does not have email id. For this reason this structured interview was limited to mostly the students of college or universities and few other participant who have email id and have internet access. For this reason it was not possible to collect in a wide range of young to old people, what they are thinking about the corona virus outbreak, what are the positive and negative impacts they may report that connected to their life.

         Method used and procedure:

There are two ultimate type of methods of data collection, 1/ Conversational and 2/ Observational. For an anthropological research study the key tool is observation, which not only makes to understand  the way of talking or interacting of an individual but also expresses the real fact hidden behind the conversational investigation.

Interview is one of the major methods that falls under the conversational method of data collection. It is initiated to obtaining information relevant to a specific study. It not only involves conversation but also learning from the respondents’ gestures, facial expressions and pauses and his environment. Interviewing requires face-to-face contact or contact over telephone and calls for interviewing skills. The previous practice was done on a unstructured guide but in this practice the interview is guided by a structure based on the previous experience.    

A structured interview is a conversation where an interviewer asks an interviewee through a set questions in a standardize order. The interviewer collects the responses of the participants and analyse them according to the nature of the question. A structured interview has several benefits over an unstructured interview, including,

·         The interview engages more consistency and less chance of errors.

·         The interview is less likely to be biased;

·         Interview responses are easy to compare;

·         Evaluation and interpretations are more easy for the designed question set.

     Advantages of the structured interview :

·         Structured interviews offer a richer, more comprehensive view of an issue;

·         The interview can expand through a line of related questions to have more detailed responses from the interviewee;

·         The structured interview can easily be checked for the reliability of the data; and

·         Standardised questions make the process efficient. All the respondents will answer the same questions so the answers can easily be compared as well as can be easy to interpreted in a comparative manner.

·         It is a easy process to collect data rather than time consuming long unstructured interviews.

Advantages of the structured interview :

·       The interviewee is limited as they are only able to choose limited options;

·       Rapport building between interviewer and interviewee in not possible through this method.

·       The assessments can be limited and more useful for quantitative analysis rather tha qualitative.

·       There may be disconnection between understanding for the absence of informal conversation between interviewer and interviewee.; and

·       The topic under concern could be misinterpreted.

In this practice the method that have in used is structured interview method, for proceeding with the structural guidance, questionnaire method was used for collecting data. The process of this practice is as follows,

·         Experience for making the questionnaire was pertained from the previous unstructured interview regarding to understand the impact of corona virus in human life.

·         Participants were selected from the individuals who were not attended the previous unstructured interview and individuals who are not from the M. Sc. Previous year student,  Department of Anthropology,  University of Delhi as they are carrying out this similar practice .

·         Questionnaire was made on Google forms which is a web-based app used to create forms for data collection purposes . data gathered using the form is typically stored in a spreadsheet and it is convenient and useful for the students as it is free app and easily accessible for a student. It also helps by summarizing the answers provided by the participants, for that analysis of those answers becomes little easy .

·         The form was made with a description provided with the aim and purpose of the study and it was send to the email of many individual and to some link was shared through social media (WhatsApp) with a request to fill the form.

·         Answers were stored in the google forms app and was summarized by itself, from the answers and summarization analysis is done to understand and measure the impacts.

As face-to-face interaction is not possible for the present lockdown situation, the interview was done through social media and telephone access.

The form was made with 14 questions 4 of them for their general information and 10 of them regarding the corona virus outbreak and prevention strategies. The questions were close ended with 4 to 7 options and there was also a space to provide if anything other is there. The questionnaire that have been made in google forms to understand the impact of corona virus in the life of people is as follows,

·         What is your name?

·         What is your educational qualification?

Secondary / Higher Secondary / Graduate / Post-Graduate / M. Phil / Doctorate /

Post Doctorate

·         What is your occupational status?

Student with no personal income / Part time job / Service / Business / Other

·         Are you familiar with the current situation of COVID-19 outbreak in the world?

Yes / No / Maybe

·         Which resource do you prefer more to find information regarding corona virus updates?

New Papers / News Channels / Internet Resources / Social Media / Radio / Others

·         Have you travelled to anywhere withing last 14 days?

Yes / No

·         Have you experienced any of the following symptoms in last 14 days?

Dry Cough / High Fever / Sore Thought / Difficulty in breathing /All of the above /

None of the above

·         Have you consulted to any guidence ?

Consulted to doctor / Had been admitted to the hospital / Had been tested for COVID-19 / Maintaining home quarantine / None / Other:

·         How much are you concerned about the present situation?

Feeling depressed about the situation / feeling fearful / Feeling hopeful to recovery of the situation / Feeling Casual / Helping others to be aware / Neutral

·         What precautions are you taking to avoid the affinity?

Washing hands repeatedly / Using alcohol based sanitizer / Drinking enough water / Wearing Mask / Using tissue while coughing and sneezing / Maintaining Social Distance / All of the above / Some of the above / None of the above / Other:

·         What is your feeling of having lockdown situation?

It is a great Strategy to prevent the outbreak / It is not working as such / It is making trouble for the labour class people / Neutral / Other:

·         According to you what is the major strategy to stop the outbreak?

Keep the lockdown with an extension / Have COVID-19 test for all / Keep social distance / all of the above / none of the above / Other:

·         Any impact of the lockdown situation in your personal life?

Bonding among family members is strengthening / Conflicts arising within family / Spending more time with life partner or lover / Social distancing keeping family members in distance / All of the above / None of the above / Other:

·        The compromised area in your life due to COVID-

Work / Study / Relationship with relatives / Relationship with friends or colleagues / Food and enjoyments / Other:

·         What is your food preference?

Trying to cook delicious food at home / Maintaining Diet /Having healthy foods / Preferring online ordered food / Other:

·         Any positive and noticeable habit that included in your daily life in last 14 days?

Meditation and Yoga / Experiencing working from home / Experiencing online learning / Learning extra curriculum activities / Cooking food for family / All of the above / None / Other:

Observation and analysis:

Before starting with the questionnaire a description of the study was given along with it’s aim and objectives and participants were given a choice to be agreed or not after being informed about the study. The questionnaire was delivered to 32 people out of whom first 20 people who  were responded, their answers are included in this study.

To understand the impact of corona virus some basic information was asked to answer for the sake of the analysis to interpret with better understanding. The  analysis is as follows,

·         Question 1 :           18 individual out of 20 participants have presented themselves as they are familiar with the current corona virus outbreak situation. Those 2 participants who have mentioned they are not familiar with the situation on asking them why they responded that it was their mistake to understand the question as they thought it may be asking them that if they are  affected. Otherwise  everyone is well known to this current outbreak.

·         Question 2 :         Among the 20 respondents 6 individual has  completed higher secondary and pursuing bachelor’s degree in college , 9 individual is already done their graduation and pursuing for post-graduation, 4 individual has completed their post-graduation and preparing themselves for government jobs or research fellowship and 1 female participant among them  is  doing her Ph. D and there was only 1 male individual who has completed master of philosophy (M. Phil.) and trying for PhD.  They all are literate people and having great attention to the current pandemic situation.

·         Question 3:                 Being student 17 individual out of 20 participants have no personal income, they all are preparing themselves for their future. No one has any part time job as well. Only 1 individual is already in a government sector who is the most elder among the 20 participants. And only 2 participants have added themselves as other occupational status, they carrying out coaching classes for some students which helps  them to earn their pocket money not much more than that like occupational.

·         Question 4:             11 participants among the 20 participants, which means most of the participant prefers the internet resources as their source of information regarding corona virus outbreak. Which proves that most of the people check their social media profiles, most of the information they are getting by scrolling the social media pages or other information sites like WHO. 8 participants follows the news channels more than internet resources as they does not have social media profiles or they are more comfortable with the news reports and only 1 participant follows the newspaper as he is not that much interested in news or internets. But the people who access the internet resources also prefer the new channels to have information as well.          

    Question 5:              19 out of 20 people have not travelled to anywhere during this lockdown period. Even they have not visited out of their house in last 14 days. Only 1 participant had come back to his home from his working place but he had maintained the precautions as much as was possible for him during the travel. Although it was not an international or national travel, it was a 7 hours journey and then he took himself for self-quarantine. So it can be observed that people have maintained the lockdown and avoided the physical distancing with people and getting notified everyday basis.

·         Question 6 :             Now a list of symptoms regarding COVID-19 was given in the questionnaire by asking the participant whether they have experienced any of them or not. 18 participants among 20 participants does not experienced any of the corona virus symptoms, even the boy who have travelled from another district before 10 days also not have experienced any issue where on the another hand there are 2 girls who have experienced all of the symptoms little and they took the advice of doctor by consulted him in a ID hospital and maintained the schedule provided by the doctor although their test report was normal. they were very much         but now they are fine as they have maintained the medicines. 

·         Question 7:              13 participants are feeling hopeful for the situation to be overcome soon. Where 4 people are tensed and feeling depressed when they use to think about the other countries or the people. 1 people have neutral mind she don’t know whether the situation will be fine soon or not or what is going to be happen in future she does not have any kind of idea and 2 people are feeling hopeful and trying to help others to be aware and safe in this extreme situation.

·         Question 8:              10 participants out of 20,  is maintaining home quarantine as they are not facing any kind of symptoms regarding corona virus. 7 participants are living a normal life still now but of course maintaining physical distance with people by not going out from their home. only 3 people have consulted doctors among which 2 of them had experienced little symptoms so they consulted doctor and took precautionary medicines and the other does not have faced any kind of symptoms but she had little psychological pressure so she had consulted a psychologists and now she is claiming that she is fine.  

·         Question 9:      16 participants are maintaining all the safety precautions starting from hand washing, using alcohol based sanitizer, drinking more water, wearing mask, using tissues while coughing and sneezing or every time to maintaining social distance, only 4 participants are not maintaining all the measures but they are avoiding physical distancing of course and using mask whenever they are going out or necessary time. It is proving that most of the people are actually afraid of being infected so they are trying themselves to stay safe and taking precautionary measures as much as possible.

·         Question 10:           Through the diagram given bellow, it can be understood a basic emotional aspect that what the participants are feeling about the lockdown, as a precautionary measure to avoid or minimize corona virus outbreak. So 90 out of 20 individuals are thinking that the lockdown is the great strategy and it can be the only way to stop the outbreak. 5 people has a feeling that this is making trouble for the labour class people, one has pointed out that he is agree with all of the options given there but is a huge economical shut down all over the nation and worldwide, he thinks that lockdown may does not have that much bad effect for the upper class but it is a bitter experience for the lower class workers.

·         Question 11 :           Lockdown is a great decision taken by the government of India. Although most of the people have accepted this decision but what they are thinking about this strategy, 15 participants have reported that they think this is a great strategy  which everyone should maintain and even the lockdown should keep in an extension until everything gets normal. along with this there should COVID_19 test be done to everyone and should maintain the social distancing. According to 3 participants lockdown should not apply, the workers should give permission to work but in keep distancing with each other as then they could earn little.

·         Question 12:            Lockdown situation due to corona virus outbreak has great negative and few positive impact in the professional as well as educational life of almost everyone. But through the diagram presented below it can be noticed that there are some impacts are also there in the personal life of the people. 14 participants out of 20 participants has reported that due to the lockdown they are not going out o f their home. they have a strong feeling that although some of them are busy for their online classes and other works but they are spending a great time with their family as well, thus there bonding is representing little more deep through their care for each other. According to two of the participants conflicts are arising due do spend all the time together within 4 walls and social distancing is keeping family members and relatives away from them. And 4 person does not have realised any kind of such emotional things as they are busy with their online schedules.  

·         Question 13:        8 people have reported that they have compromised their study due to this corona virus outbreak, 5 people have a feeling that they have compromised their relationship with friends and colleagues. 4 people is having loss in their economic condition, they thought they have comprised their work due to the safety precautions. 3 people is very much in love with outside foods, according to them apart from their work or study and hangouts with their friends they are more missing the outside food they used to have before, they are feeling more irritated as they are somehow not able to make some favourite foods in their home.

·      Question 14 :             Among all of the participants 9 participants are trying to cook healthy and delicious foods at home as they are avoiding to go out and having street food but they love spicy fast foods so they are trying to make those at home with healthy quality. 9 of the participants are having healthy foods that are prepared by their mothers. Only 1 person is still having online ordered food whenever she is eager to have that and only 1 person does not have any kind of choosy mind, he is fine with whatever he came to have.

 

·         Question 15:        Here the diagram is multi-coloured representing that there are lot of new habits have been included in their daily lifestyle. 7 participant among 20s are experiencing online learning. As they are having there busy schedule through online resources. 3 individuals are experiencing cooking in this unexpected holidays, 3 person had included meditation and yoga in their daily routine which was not able for them in their busy schedule in the past. 3 parsons have reported that they are doing everything including meditation to yoga to online classes, whenever they are willing to do that. 2 people is trying to learn extra curriculum activities and only 1 in each who are not interested to any of the thing only sleeping, eating and watching movies and else is experiencing working from home as he is a service woman.

Conclusion:

                The  questionnaire for this structured interview was designed based on the experience collected from the previous unstructured interview. A wide range of age was tried to combine within 20 individuals in that practice. Here this practice is presenting the positive and negative impact mostly who are studying in bachelor’s and master’s degree. Through the study several new facts came out, some answers were beyond the options as well. All over this study is presenting that this virus is keeping negative impact in the educational and economic life of people as well as it is also helping to start some new habits, to learn how to manage life without going out of the home, most importantly this helping ourselves to maintain personal hygiene along with less gathering via sense of physical distancing.