Section C Answer all questions in this section. Cecil is studying a family. The mother, father and both of their sons all have a phobia of trees.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2020). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [relevant credit] unstructured interviews are flexible / non-standardised / open-ended / not planned beforehand; can ask open questions; researcher can build rapport / trust; researcher can allow the interview to flow / follow up interesting leads; can collect rich / in-depth / detailed qualitative data; interviews could be conducted with each family member; interviews would be conducted individually / as a group; interviews would take place in a comfortable / private setting (e.g. home); recording methods e.g. audio / video recording, note taking; questions about their phobia (e.g. when it started, what causes it, how it affects them); interviewer would use active listening skills; researcher would try to avoid leading questions; consent / confidentiality / right to withdraw procedures for the interview itself
2. [relevant credit] Weakness: data from unstructured interviews can be hard to analyse / compare; can be subjective / researcher bias due to interpretations; time-consuming; difficult to replicate; Solution: could use a structured or semi-structured interview (to make data more comparable / easier to analyse); use quantitative data analysis e.g. content analysis (to reduce subjectivity); use more than one researcher / inter-rater reliability (to reduce subjectivity); limit interview length (to reduce time-consuming nature); transcribe and categorise responses / coding frames