Telephone & email interviews: using the respondents' context to determine the best interview mode

This poster explains reasons for choosing different interview modes. Although many people assume that face-to-face contact is the best, perhaps only, mode for effective interviewing, a substantial body of research suggests otherwise. In particular, components of the respondents' context-geographical disbursement, privacy, empowerment needs, scheduling, anonymity, fluency, stigmatization, and cultural background-affect which interview modes are more effective. This poster introduces the concept of respondent context, and demonstrates the best uses for different interview modes.

[1]  Lokman I. Meho.  E-mail interviewing in qualitative research: A methodological discussion: Research Articles , 2006 .

[2]  Judith E. Sturges,et al.  Comparing Telephone and Face-to-Face Qualitative Interviewing: a Research Note , 2004 .

[3]  Neil Stephens,et al.  Collecting data from elites and ultra elites: telephone and face-to-face interviews with macroeconomists , 2007 .

[4]  Michelle M. Kazmer,et al.  QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING IN INTERNET STUDIES: Playing with the media, playing with the method , 2008 .

[5]  Lokman I. Meho.  E-mail interviewing in qualitative research: A methodological discussion , 2006, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[6]  Sarah Knox,et al.  Qualitative research interviews , 2009, Psychotherapy research : journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research.

[7]  Naomi V. Hay‐Gibson,et al.  Interviews via VoIP: Benefits and Disadvantages within a PhD study of SMEs , 2010 .

[8]  Nicole Cook.  It's good to talk: performing and recording the telephone interview , 2009 .

[9]  J. H. Frey,et al.  The Interview: From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text , 2000 .

[10]  Gina Novick.  Is there a bias against telephone interviews in qualitative research? , 2008, Research in nursing & health.

[11]  Amanda Holt,et al.  Using the telephone for narrative interviewing: a research note , 2010 .

[12]  Stefan Stieger,et al.  Using Instant Messaging for Internet-Based Interviews , 2006, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[13]  Michael Quinn Patton,et al.  How to use qualitative methods in evaluation , 1987 .

[14]  R. Weiss.  Learning from strangers : the art and method of qualitative interview studies , 1995 .

[15]  I. Levav,et al.  Telephone vs face-to-face interviewing in a community psychiatric survey. , 1993, American journal of public health.

[16]  Kelly R. Damphousse,et al.  Obtaining sensitive information from a wary population: a comparison of telephone and face-to-face surveys of welfare recipients in the United States. , 2005, Social science & medicine.