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3.3.3 Semi-structured and structured interviewsThe research interview is a prominent data – collection strategy in both qualitativeand quantitative research (Bryman 2008). While a structured interview has aformalized limited set of questions, a semi-structured interview is more flexible,allowing us to bring up new questions during the interview as a result of what theinterviewee answer. In every village selected we had structured interviews with keyinformants, already designed by POVSUS-REDD. In addition, we also developed ourown interview guides to other key resource persons both locally and nationally, wherethe lack of formal structure allowed them to be more personal as well as giving usunanticipated insights and ideas. During these sessions, we chose to use a taperecorder since we felt it helped to create a more relaxed kind of conversation wherewe more easily could keep the interviewee‟s attention. This in combination withactively using our field notes helped us to better understand the setting we were in,which is important, especially at an early stage of the process. Through our ownresearch coupled with the guidance of our supervisor‟s in Tanzania and Norway, wecame in contact with people with knowledge relevant to our objectives whom wearranged interviews with. Informal interviews were also used but are something thatcan be seen as informal conversations and helped us foster low pressure interactions,allowing the respondents to speak more freely.On a village level, with the help of an already prepared structured interview guide wealso interviewed local resource persons in all of our selected villages to get a factualand overall overview of the situation in the village. This offered information ofimportance for the other parts of our study, particularly the questionnaire thatfollowed, as we were then more aware of the local context.3.3.4 Focus group discussionsThe focus group technique is a method of interviewing that involves severalinterviewees at the same time. We used this method as part of our PRA in all theselected villages. As stated by Bryman (2008), the focus group method is helpful togenerate data through the interaction between informants, and to see how peoplerespond to each other‟s views rather than just the responses themselves. With an61