Nondirective Interview - Definition & Meaning

Published in Human Resources Terms by MBA Skool Team

What is Nondirective Interview?

Nondirective interview is an interview in which questions are not prearranged. Unstructured or nondirective interviews generally have no set format. The lack of structure allows the interviewer to ask questions which comes to their mind next as a follow up and interrogate points of interest as they go on further.


Nondirective Interview is a type of Interview schedule. Interview schedule is a one to one direct communication between researcher and subject for collection of data. In it series of a questions to be asked in an interview is called interview schedule. Non-directive interviews, there is free talk on issues.


They tend to be more open ended, informal, free flowing and flexible. Questions are not pre-set, although there might be some topics that the researchers wish to explore. This gives the interview some structure and direction. An unstructured interview is thus an interview which has no any set format but in which the interviewer might have some key questions formed in advance. Unstructured interviews proceed in such a manner - questions based on an interviewee’s responses are interrogated further and proceeds like a friendly conversation.


Characteristics of non-directive interview are: -

• Unstructured.

• Conversational style interview.

• No particular structure, the interviewer asks questions as they come to mind.

• No scoring of answers


Advantages:

• Encourages maturity.

• Encourages open communication.

• Develops personal responsibility


Disadvantages:

• There would be the possibility of verbally wandering off the subject,

• sharing of irrelevant information too much, and/or may lead to unnecessary results such as in the interviewee not including specific information the interviewer wants/needs to know.

• Non-directive interviews generally take much longer time to complete than a structured (directive) interview.


Hence, this concludes the definition of Nondirective Interview along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.

Continue Reading:



Share this Page on:
Facebook ShareTweetShare on Linkedin