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 the effective and ineffective use of 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.
-Using the “Structured Interview Form” document as a guide, develop your own set of structured interview questions to elicit the information. You will submit your questions with your Assignment.
Write a 2- to 3-page paper in which you do the following:
Explain at least one challenge you had in meeting the goals of the interview.
Explain how you addressed or could address the challenge you experienced. Include information from both the Learning Resources and from your experience that you could use to address this challenge.
Finally, explain the advantages and limitations of this type of interviewing.
REFERENCES
McClam, T., & Woodside, M. (2012). The helping process: Assessment to termination. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.
Chapter 2, “The Assessment Phase” (Review)
Chapter 4, “Effective Intake Interviewing” (Review)
Chapter 5, “Interviewing Skills” (Review)
https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/science/article/pii/S0005789411000554?via%3Dihub
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012). Effective human services interviewing: Structured interviewing techniques: Part two. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012). Effective human services interviewing: Structured interviewing techniques: Part one. Baltimore, MD: Author.
