Strategies for Conducting an Effective Structured Interview
“What is your highest level of education?”
“If you are employed, where do you work?”
“Have you ever sought services at this organization before?”
Structured interviews using questions like these often are used as an intake tool to help a human services professional gather objective, uniform data that are necessary to begin assisting an interviewee. In a structured interview, the interviewer asks a predetermined, standardized set of questions to all interviewees. The purpose of the interview is to gather basic information. Structured interviews often are employed in the initial interview with a new interviewee.
In this Assignment, you will watch two examples of structured interviews in the Course Media.
To prepare for this Assignment:
- Review the information in Chapter 2 in your course text, The Helping Process: Assessment to Termination. Focus on the section titled “Structured and Unstructured Interviews.”
- Review the information in Chapter 4 in your course text, The Helping Process: Assessment to Termination. Focus on the section titled “Closed and Open Inquiries.”
- Review the information in Chapter 5 in your course text, The Helping Process: Assessment to Termination.
- Review the articles, “Use of Structured Interviews by Psychiatrists in Real Clinical Settings” and “Popular or Unpopular? Therapists’ Use of Structured Interviews and Their Estimation of Patient Acceptance.” Focus on the pros and cons of conducting this type of interview.
- Review the Course Media, “Interview Techniques: Part 1” and “Interview Techniques: Part 2” for this week. Observe body language, setting, and questions used by the interviewer and the responses of the interviewee.
- Think about effective and ineffective use of the structured interviewing techniques.
- Consider the advantages and limitations of structured interviewing.
- Consider the following scenario:
- You are a job services counselor. A person has come to you to receive job training. You need to determine this person’s background, including job-related experiences and skills, so that you can direct this individual toward the services he or she will need. Two pages