engineering

Structured interview

Structured interview is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Structured interview rather than just read about it. In short: A structured interview (also known as a standardized interview or a researcher-administered survey) is a quantitative research method commonly employed in survey research. The aim of this approach is to ensure that each interview is presented with exactly the same questions in the same order.

Key takeaways

Structured interview belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Structured interview to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Structured interview from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A structured interview (also known as a standardized interview or a researcher-administered survey) is a quantitative research method commonly employed in survey research. The aim of this approach is to ensure that each interview is presented with exactly the same questions in the same order. This ensures that answers can be reliably aggregated and that comparisons can be made with confidence between sample sub groups or between different survey periods.

Structure Structured interviews are a means of collecting data for a statistical survey. In this case, the data is collected by an interviewer rather than through a self-administered questionnaire. Interviewers read the questions exactly as they appear on the survey questionnaire. The choice of answers to the questions is often fixed (close-ended) in advance, though open-ended questions can also be included within a structured interview. A structured interview also standardises the order in which questions are asked of survey respondents, so the questions are always answered within the same context. This is important for minimising the impact of context effects, where the answers given to a survey question can depend on the nature of preceding questions. Though context effects can never be avoided, it is often desirable to hold them constant across all respondents. By doing so, structured interviews often have increased validity.

Other uses

Qualitative research Structured interviews can also be used as a qualitative research methodology. For structured qualitative interviews, it is usually necessary for researchers to develop an interview schedule which lists the wording and sequencing of questions. Interview schedules are sometimes considered a means by which researchers can increase the reliability and credibility of research data.

Hiring Structured interviews have been advocated for use in the hiring process as well,. Structured interviews have been found to provide better hiring decisions as they are more accurate and objective. The United States Postal Service uses structured interviews for at least some of its hiring, and has printed a guide to structured interviews that is publicly available online. Also Google started them too after data-driven research found it to be beneficial over more common unstructured interviews.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Structured interview

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Structured interview claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Structured interview before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Structured interview ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Structured interview

In research: Structured interview appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Structured interview in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Structured interview is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Interviews, Job interview, Quantitative research, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Structured interview outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Structured interview in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Structured interview means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Structured interview out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Structured interview in simple terms?

Why does Structured interview matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Structured interview?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Structured interview.