Structured interviews and surveys

Structured interviews are a great way to better understand or expand upon the information you collect during the Listen stage of the Framework. During a structured interview, each participant is asked exactly the same set of questions in the same order. Staff familiar with conducting quantitative research will be very familiar with this approach. The technique is also commonly used during a selection process, such as a formal job interview.

Structured interviews provide an easy and inexpensive way to extract data from participants to aid student experience understanding and usability understanding. The valuable information harvested during structured interviews can then be used during the Ideation stage of the Framework.

Using a pre-made set of high-quality questions will save you time during the interview and help the interviewer feel more confident during the session.

There's no need for a member of staff to conduct the interview. We would recommend the following approach:

1. Share the information collected during the Listen phase with your Student Reps.
2. Discuss the findings and create a set of questions in collaboration with your Student Reps.
3. Get a willing Student Rep to conduct the structured interview with individual students in person or via Zoom.

Remember to use the information gathered during any unstructured interviews during the Listen stage should be used to formulate more relevant questions used in structured interviews.

The benefit of asking a Student Rep to help is they have recent, first-hand experience of being a student. Also, your students might be more willing to share information with a fellow student rather than a staff member.