Final answer:
Qualitative interviewing aims to understand individual perspectives and subjective experiences, providing depth and insight into personal and social phenomena. (option a) It is especially effective for exploring complex issues that cannot easily be quantified or observed directly.
Step-by-step explanation:
The purpose of qualitative interviewing is to understand how individuals subjectively see the world and make sense of their lives. It is intertwined with the symbolic interactionist perspective, which prioritizes the symbolic meanings and interpretations that individuals place on events, behaviors, and objects in their lives. Unlike quantitative methods that seek to collect statistical data from large populations, qualitative interviewing allows researchers to dive deep into the personal, subjective experiences of individuals through open-ended questions and conversations. By engaging in a one-on-one dialogue, the researcher can gain insights into the participants' inner thoughts and feelings which might be difficult to express in more structured or public settings.
Qualitative interviewing may also help respondents to reflect and perhaps understand their own situations better through the process of articulating their experiences. However, its main intention is not for the benefit of the subject but to collect nuanced data that can inform an understanding of human behavior and social phenomena. This approach often yields a rich array of data that is complex to organize but provides a depth of understanding that numerical data alone cannot capture.