Research design from the respondents’ perspective

Responses to interviewing

Access to Layers of response Examples of

respondents from respondents techniques
Tends to be
conclusive
• Spontaneous Highly
• Reasoned structured
Public

• Conventional questionnaires

e.g. telephone
surveys
Communicable

• Concealed Questionnaires with

• Personal a proportion of open-
ended questions to
Aware

allow probing

e.g. face-to-face
surveys

• Intuitive Semi-structured to
• Imaginative unstructured
Private

interviews on an
individual or group
basis
Non-communicable

e.g. focus group discussions

• Unconscious Unstructured
• Repressed interviews and
Unaware

observations

e.g. naturalistic
approaches on a
one-to-one basis
Tends to be
exploratory