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Advantages and Disadvantages of Four Interview Techniques in Qualitative Research Raymond Opdenakker Abstract: Face-to-face interviews have long been the dominant interview technique in the field of qualitative research. In the last two decades, telephone interviewing became more and more common. Due to the explosive growth of new communication forms, such as computer mediated communication (for example e-mail and chat boxes), other interview techniques can be introduced and used within the field of qualitative research. For a study in the domain of virtual teams, I used various communication possibilities to interview informants as well as face-to-face interviews. In this article a comparison will be made concerning the advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face, telephone, e-mail and MSN messenger interviews. By including telephone and MSN messenger interviews in the comparison, the scope of this article is broader than the article of BAMPTON and COWTON (2002). Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Four Interview Techniques 2.1 Face-to-face interviews: Synchronous communication of time and place 2.2 Telephone interviews: Synchronous communication of time, asynchronous communication of place 2.3 MSN messenger interviews: Synchronous communication of time, asynchronous communication of place 2.4 E-mail interviews: Asynchronous communication of time and place 3. Summary 4. Conclusions Acknowledgement References Author Citation 1. Introduction KVALE (1983, p.174) defines the qualitative research interview as "an interview, whose purpose is to gather descriptions of the life-world of the interviewee with respect to interpretation of the meaning of the described phenomena". Collecting these descriptions can be done in several ways, of which face-to-face interviews are the most common. Besides Face-to-Face (FtF) interviews, interviewing by telephone is popular too. But also interviewing using the Internet is rising. Due to developments in computer technology, all kinds of computer mediated communication (CMC) tools have been developed. With CMC is meant: a process where messages are electronically transferred from a sender to one or © 2006 FQS http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/ Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research (ISSN 1438-5627) Volume 7, No. 4, Art. 11 September 2006 Key words: interviews, computer mediated com- munication (CMC), face-to-face interview, e-mail interview, MSN messenger interview, telephone interview FORUM: QUALITATIVE SOCIAL RESEARCH SOZIALFORSCHUNG FQS 7(4), Art. 11, Raymond Opdenakker: Advantages and Disadvantages of Four Interview Techniques in Qualitative Research more recipient(s), both in synchronous (in real time) and in asynchronous (independent from time and place) setting. Examples of tools used for CMC are e-mail and chat boxes (as MSN messenger), which also can be used for interviews. [1] The experiences with the four mentioned interview techniques were gained during my research of EU funded virtual teams, from which team members were dispersed all over Europe. I tried to conduct as much FtF interviews as possible in the first place, but due to time and financial constraints this was not always possible. Also doing research on virtual teams, where FtF communication has decreased in favour of other forms of communication, paved the way for me to use other interview techniques. Although it would have been likely to establish telephone interviews, not all interviewees were in favour of it. As one interviewee remarked "We can do it (the interview) by an Instant Messaging tool as well. If it takes an hour, I think it will be better and less disturbing for my colleagues". The focus of this research was semi-structured interviews. [2] In this article four types of interview techniques will be compared: FtF interviews, telephone interviews, MSN messenger interviews, and e-mail interviews. The focus of this article is concentrated on the ways in which the four interview techniques differ from each other, thus highlighting the advantages and disadvantages. Whenever possible, the experiences from my own interviews are mentioned. [3] 2. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Four Interview Techniques When comparing the four interview techniques, the differences in advantages and disadvantages are on one hand related to their differences on the dimensions synchronous communication in time and/or space and asynchronous communication in time and/or space. Table 1 presents the four interview techniques related to these dimensions. Time Place Synchronous communication FtF MSN messenger Telephone FtF Asynchronous communication E-mail E-mail MSN messenger Telephone Table 1: The four interview techniques divided by synchronous/asynchronous communication in time and/or space [4] FtF interviews are characterised by synchronous communication in time and place. MSN messenger and telephone interviews are characterised by © 2006 FQS http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/ FQS 7(4), Art. 11, Raymond Opdenakker: Advantages and Disadvantages of Four Interview Techniques in Qualitative Research synchronous communication in time, but asynchronous communication in place. E-mail interviews are characterised as asynchronous communication in time and place. One could argue that MSN messenger and telephone interviews are characterised by synchronous communication in cyberspace. As cyberspace is defined as "the noplace" (MORSE, 1998), communication in a virtual place brings with it other advantages and disadvantages than communication in a real place, as in FtF interviews. Therefore with synchronous communication of place is meant a real place, and not a virtual place. [5] On the other hand advantages and disadvantages of the four interview techniques are related to the technology used. [6] 2.1 Face-to-face interviews: Synchronous communication of time and place As already mentioned, FtF interviews are characterised by synchronous communication in time and place. Due to this synchronous communication, as no other interview method FtF interviews can take its advantage of social cues. Social cues, such as voice, intonation, body language etc. of the interviewee can give the interviewer a lot of extra information that can be added to the verbal answer of the interviewee on a question. Of course the value of social cues also depends on what the interviewer wants to know from the interviewee. If the interviewer is seen as a subject, and as an irreplaceable person, from whom the interviewer wants to know the attitude towards for example the labour union, then social cues are very important. When the interviewer interviews an expert about things or persons that have nothing to do with the expert as a subject, then social cues become less important (EMANS, 1986). On the other hand this visibility can lead to disturbing interviewer effects, when the interviewer guides with his or her behaviour the interviewee in a special direction. This disadvantage can be diminished by using an interview protocol and by the awareness of the interviewer of this effect. [7] In FtF interviews there is no significant time delay between question and answer; the interviewer and interviewee can directly react on what the other says or does. An advantage of this synchronous communication is that the answer of the interviewee is more spontaneous, without an extended reflection. But due to this synchronous character of the medium, the interviewer must concentrate much more on the questions to be asked and the answers given. Especially when an unstructured or semi structured interview list is used, and the interviewer has to formulate questions as a result of the interactive nature of communication. WENGRAF (2001, p.194) even speaks of "double attention", which means "that you must be both listening to the informant's responses to understand what he or she is trying to get at and, at the same time, you must be bearing in mind your needs to ensure that all your questions are liable to get answered within the fixed time at the level of depth and detail that you need". [8] FtF interviews can be tape recorded, of course with the permission of the interviewee. Using a tape recorder has the advantage that the interview report is © 2006 FQS http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/ FQS 7(4), Art. 11, Raymond Opdenakker: Advantages and Disadvantages of Four Interview Techniques in Qualitative Research more accurate than writing out notes. But tape recording also brings with it the danger of not taking any notes during the interview. Taking notes during the interview is important for the interviewer, even if the interview is tape recorded: (1) to check if all the questions have been answered, (2) in case of malfunctioning of the tape recorder, and (3) in case of "malfunctioning of the interviewer". In one interview I conducted I should have taken notes because I had forgotten to push the "record" button. Another disadvantage of tape recording the interview is the time a transcription of the tape recording consumes. BRYMAN (2001) suggests that one hour of tape takes five to six hours to transcribe. [9] The synchronous communication of time and place in a FtF interview also has the advantage that the interviewer has a lot of possibilities to create a good interview ambience. In other words the interviewer can make more use of a standardisation of the situation. On the other hand this synchronous communication of time and place can bring with it a lot of time and costs. Interviewing an interviewee in a place some 200 kilometres away will take a whole day, including travelling and interviewing. It can even take more days, when the interviewee is ill and didn't or couldn't reach the interviewer in time to cancel the interview. Also the costs, i.e. travelling costs, can become very high in this way. Doing research by using FtF interviews, which have to be held all over the globe, as for example is the case when doing research in the domain of virtual teams, takes a lot of effort, time and costs, and is therefore almost impossible for one researcher. [10] The last advantage of this interview method is that termination of a FtF interview is easy, compared to other interview methods. In the interaction between interviewer and interviewee enough clues can be given that the end of the interview is near, for example by shuffling the papers and turning off the tape recorder. An explicit way to terminate the interview is by thanking the interviewee for cooperation and asking him or her if there are further remarks that might be relevant to the topic or the interview process. This can lead to an emergent of a whole new area of information (WENGRAF, 2001). [11] 2.2 Telephone interviews: Synchronous communication of time, asynchronous communication of place Due to the asynchronous communication of place, one of the advantages of telephone interviewing is the extended access to participants, compared to FtF interviews. MANN and STEWART (2000) make a distinction in the following categories: • Wide geographical access. People from all over the globe can be interviewed —of course if they have access to telephone or computer. FtF interviewing can be very expensive and takes too much time. • Hard to reach populations. It enables researchers to contact populations that might be difficult to work with on an FtF basis for example mothers at home with small children, shift workers, computer addicts and people with disabilities. © 2006 FQS http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/ FQS 7(4), Art. 11, Raymond Opdenakker: Advantages and Disadvantages of Four Interview Techniques in Qualitative Research • Closed site access. It is a possible means of access to people on sites, which have closed or limited access (such as hospitals religious communities, prisons, the military, and cults). • Sensitive accounts. Some personal issues are so sensitive that participants might be reluctant to discuss them FtF with an interviewer. • Access to dangerous or politically sensitive sites. With telephone, interviewers can interview people living or working in war zones, or sites where diseases are rife, without needing to grapple with the danger—and the bureaucracy—of visiting the area. [12] Although the interviewer can interview people that are not easy to access, one of the disadvantages of asynchronous communication of place by telephone is the reduction of social cues. The interviewer does not see the interviewee, so body language etc. can not be used as a source of extra information. But social cues as voice and intonation are still available. Although social cues are reduced, enough social cues remain for terminating a telephone interview without a problem. [13] Another disadvantage of asynchronous communication of place is that the interviewer has no view on the situation in which the interviewee is situated. Because of this the interviewer has lesser possibilities to create a good interview ambience. FtF interviews can make more use of a standardisation of the situation. Due to this lessened possibility to create a standardisation of the situation with telephone an extra disadvantage is that the interviewee can stay "visible" for other employees and managers in the organisation. As I experienced for example the interviewee was called away by his manager, so the interview had to be stopped abruptly. [14] As in FtF interviews synchronous communication of time implies that interviewer and interviewee can directly react to what the other says. This also leads to the advantage that the interviewee is more spontaneous in his response and does not deliberate too long. But on the other hand, the interviewer has to concentrate much more on the questions that need to be asked