Toolkit 14: Using phone interviews
Annie Irvine, Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, September 2010
Summary
This toolkit explores the use of telephone interviews in qualitative research. It discusses the practical and methodological advantages of the approach, including minimal travel time and cost and increased anonymity for participants.
The two main methodological objections to telephone interviews are traditional: the difficulty of achieving rapport with participants; and the lack of non-verbal communication. The toolkit discusses whether these concerns are well-founded, and suggests that their significance may have been exaggerated.
The toolkit is based on a study at the Social Policy Unit at the University of York which compared face-to-face interviews and phone interviews conducted by the same researcher on the same research project to examine the difference that interview mode had on the data produced.
- For a more detailed consideration of this topic, see Irvine, A., Drew, P. and Sainsbury, R. (2010) Mode effects in qualitative interviews: a comparison of semi-structured face-to-face and telephone interviews using conversation analysis, Research Works, 2010-03, Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, York.