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First I will clarify the context of the words ‘type’ and ‘method’ used here. The word ‘type’ is intended to indicate that there are several different sorts of interview in respect of the way that interviews are conducted. I have used the word ‘functions’ below to consider interviews that are typically carried out. These functions would include interview for a job for instance. Within this context the word ‘type’ is used to highlight the fact that interviews can be conducted in several different ways. The main types that I will discuss are concerned with interview focus and interview structure. The word ‘methods’ is being used to indicate that an interview can call on several different strategies to help the interviewer collect information from the interviewee. Some of these will involve general questioning and some will involve more formal methods.
A good book covering interviews, even though it is now quite old (1989), is “Knowledge Acquisition for Expert Systems” by Anna Hart. I would still recommend it.
Focus within an interview is to make sure that the interview addresses a specific topic or concept or even a small part of a concept. Many interviews will have a specific focus such as what happened at a particular road accident or how do you change the wheel on a motorcar. Other interviews may not be so concerned with focus, particularly in the early stages of an investigation. Such interviews may be held in order to establish boundaries, what is to be included later and what is not. Non focused interviews are sometimes conducted as brainstorming sessions but here, there is not normally an interviewer and interviewee.
When a strict focus is required for an interview, part of the interviewers job will be to maintain that focus.
Structure in an interview refers to how much control the interviewer intends to have over how a particular interview is carried out. For instance, a completely unstructured interview may almost be like a conversation and the interviewee may end up deciding what to discuss and how things are discussed. A structured interview may mean that the interviewer has carefully prepared a set of questions and knows exactly how these are to be asked and what type of answer is expected for each. In such cases, a good interviewer would be able to conduct many interviews using the same structure or control and ensure that all interviews were similar. Such detailed structure may be required for a well controlled set of research interviews where it is important to remove interview bias as far as possible.