Huan is planning an interview about attitudes to mental illness.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Oct/Nov 2019). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [1] (a)(i) 'On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 means 'care a lot'), how important is it to care about people with mental health problems?'
2. [1] (a)(ii) Quantitative data does not explain the 'why' behind responses or provide in-depth information (generic disadvantage).
3. [1] (a)(ii) Therefore, Huan would not understand the reasons or motivations behind people's attitudes towards mental health (link).
4. [1] (b) 'Describe how you feel when you encounter a person with mental illness.'
5. [1] (b) 'To what extent do you feel that we treat mentally ill people fairly?'
6. [1] (c) In an interview, especially unstructured ones, the researcher can respond flexibly to interviewee answers (advantage).
7. [1] (c) This allows Huan to explore individuals' attitudes towards mental health in more detail (link).
8. [1] (c) The interviewer can clarify questions or ensure the participant understands them (advantage).
9. [1] (c) This helps ensure Huan's record of participants' opinions about mental health is a valid reflection (link).
10. [1] (c) Interviews generally yield richer qualitative data compared to questionnaires (advantage).
11. [1] (c) Thus, the information gathered about attitudes to mental health would be more detailed (link).
12. [1] (d) Opportunity samples are often unrepresentative or may be biased (generic disadvantage).
13. [1] (d) This means Huan's participants might have particularly positive, negative, or ignorant attitudes about mental health, making it hard to generalise (link).