Confronta i metodi

	Intervista approfondita	Intervista Semistrutturata
Campo	Qualitativo	Qualitativo
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	Mid-20th century (formalised in qualitative social research from the 1950s onward)	1946 (Merton & Kendall); codified as a standard method through the 1980s–1990s
Ideatore	Rooted in sociological interviewing traditions; systematised by researchers including Steinar Kvale and Herbert J. Rubin	Robert K. Merton and Patricia Kendall (focused interview, 1946); further systematised by Steinar Kvale
Tipo	Qualitative research method	Qualitative research method
Fonte seminale	Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Sage. ISBN: 978-0803958203	Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing (2nd ed.). Sage. ISBN: 978-0761925422
Alias	IDI, semi-structured interview, unstructured interview, qualitative interview	guided interview, semi-standardized interview, focused interview, SSI
Correlati	6	6
Sintesi	The in-depth interview is a one-to-one qualitative data-collection method in which a researcher engages a participant in an extended, open-ended conversation to elicit rich, detailed accounts of experiences, perceptions, beliefs, or meanings. Unlike structured surveys, the interview guide serves as a flexible road map rather than a fixed script, allowing the researcher to probe unexpected directions as they emerge. The approach is foundational to qualitative inquiry and is used directly as a primary method or as the data-collection arm of phenomenology, grounded theory, narrative analysis, and other frameworks.	The semi-structured interview is a qualitative data-collection method in which the researcher prepares a set of key questions or topic areas in advance but remains free to probe, follow up, and reorder as the conversation evolves. Unlike structured interviews — which fix every question and sequence — or unstructured interviews — which are entirely open — the semi-structured format balances comparability across participants with the flexibility needed to capture the depth and nuance of individual perspectives. It is the most widely used interview format in social science, health, and education research.