The semi-structured interview is the data collection method. It relies on asking open-ended questions to the participants. It also includes following up on the questions asked to get more responses. It is a qualitative research method and is generally used as a tentative tool in social sciences, marketing, and other research fields of study. A semi-structured interview gives you the autonomy to discover the relevant set of ideas that you may encounter during the interview. Generally, qualitative researchers use this method to collect or gather a new set of ideas and explore the beliefs and thoughts of a particular participant. It gives everyone the same theoretical framework. It allows the same theoretical framework to investigate different sides of the research question. In this article, we will analyze qualitative data for the semi-structured interview in detail. 

How to analyze a semi-structured interview

After successfully conducting the interview, you now have to analyze your results. The semi-structured interview has many advantages. It is considered ‘’The best of both worlds.’’ it gives you reliable data and has the ability or flexibility to ask questions. There is no distraction in the data collected through semi-structured discussion. It is rich in detail due to its flexible nature. Analyze the results after conducting the interview. Then, assign each participant a number and transcribe the audio and video recordings. Identify the patterns, and test your results or research theory. 

1. Conduct your interviews

First, conduct your interviews to analyze qualitative data for a semi-structured interview. Start a conversation with your respondents. While conducting face-to-face interviews, observe their gestures, such as body language and voice changes. Pay attention to them and listen to them carefully. Your attitude towards them should be friendly, emphatic, and non-judgmental. 

1. Transcribing interviews

Transcribing or transcription is giving a written description of oral words. Qualitative research involves interviews of individuals or groups of people, mostly written verbatim (word for word). Decide whether you are going to conduct an intelligent verbatim recording or a verbatim recording. Conduct verbatim transcription if your analysis includes pauses, laughter, and words like ‘’umm.’’. if not, then you can conduct intelligent verbatim transcription. It is easier to analyze the results, ignores filler words, and fixes grammatical issues. Transcribing allows you to remove incorrect, duplicate, and incomplete data. 

1. Coding semi-structured interviews

The next step after transcribing the qualitative data for a semi-structured interview is to code your semi-structured interview. It is also known as content or thematic analysis. This step includes coding patterns, words, or periodic responses. There are the following steps that you should keep in mind while coding; 

• Go for content analysis instead of thematic analysis because of its open-ended nature. 
• Examine your data to find common ideas, patterns, or themes that will tell you about a participant’s experience, knowledge and views. 
• Identify the code of collected data into groups
• Organize these codes into themes as themes are generally larger than codes and help you to identify the number of codes in one theme. 
• Ensure that the themes represent the patterns in responses after identifying your themes. 

1. Analyze the data

The next step is to analyze your data once you are satisfied with your codes. For this, you can take either an inductive or deductive approach. A brief explanation of these approaches is as follows; 

• The inductive approach allows your data to determine your themes. It is more open-minded than the deductive approach
• The deductive approach is the investigation of predetermined themes. It tells us whether your data authorizes the predetermined theme or not. 

You can take either theme to analyze your qualitative data for a semi-structured interview. If you find any problem in analyzing the qualitative data, you can get dissertation help online from experts. 

1. Presenting your results

After analyzing qualitative data, the next and final step is to present your results. Turn the analysis into a description or narrative and make a well-organized report. The following key points should be kept in mind while presenting your data;

• The methodology chapter of your report should define your semi-structured interview process and how you explain your analysis. 
• Clearly define each category of code in your result. 

Conclusion

The semi-structured interview is the finest method to analyze qualitative data. Students can use this method to collect data because it is reliable and help you to focus on the topic of interest. one of the disadvantages of using a semi-structured interview is that it is a time-consuming technique. Students can use the steps mentioned above to analyze the qualitative data.