ABSTRACT
Less formal types of interview are employed by researchers who will usually spend more time interviewing a smaller number of people in a less, directed, less mechanical style, and whose concerns differ in a number of ways. Researchers opting for less formal interviews are likely to be concerned to produce a qualitative understanding of the topic under study. This means that they will use interviews to gain insight into the meanings, interpretations, values and experiences of the interviewee and his or her 'world'. Implicit in this approach are a number of important assumptions and consequences which, it is worth noting, may proceed from, or indeed accompany, formal survey interviews. Researchers working with less formal interviews adopt a different perspective on the nature of the social world which, they argue, differs from the natural world in that it is composed essentially of meanings, values and interpretations.
