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Advantages and disadvantages of four interview techniques in
qualitative research
Citation for published version (APA):
Opdenakker, R. J. G. (2006). Advantages and disadvantages of four interview techniques in qualitative research.
Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung = Forum : Qualitative Social Research, 7(4), art.11-.
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Published: 01/01/2006
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OORCUIMA :LQRUEASLEITAARTICVHE Volume 7, No. 4, Art. 11
September 2006
FSS O ZIA LFO RS C HU N G
Advantages and Disadvantages
of Four Interview Techniques in Qualitative Research
Raymond Opdenakker
Key words: Abstract: Face-to-face interviews have long been the dominant interview technique in the field of
interviews, qualitative research. In the last two decades, telephone interviewing became more and more com-
computer mon. Due to the explosive growth of new communication forms, such as computer mediated com-
mediated com- munication (for example e-mail and chat boxes), other interview techniques can be introduced and
munication (CMC), used within the field of qualitative research.
face-to-face
interview, e-mail For a study in the domain of virtual teams, I used various communication possibilities to interview
interview, MSN informants as well as face-to-face interviews. In this article a comparison will be made concerning
messenger the advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face, telephone, e-mail and MSN messenger inter-
interview, views. By including telephone and MSN messenger interviews in the comparison, the scope of this
telephone article is broader than the article of BAMPTON and COWTON (2002).
interview
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
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 com-
munication (CMC) tools have been developed. With CMC is meant: a process
where messages are electronically transferred from a sender to one or more
recipient(s), both in synchronous (in real time) and in asynchronous (independent
? 2006 FQS http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/
Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research (ISSN 1438-5627)
FQS 7(4), Art. 11, Raymond Opdenakker:
Advantages and Disadvantages of Four Interview Techniques in Qualitative Research
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 FtF FtF
communication MSN messenger
Telephone
Asynchronous E-mail E-mail
communication 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
synchronous communication in time, but asynchronous communication in place.
E-mail interviews are characterised as asynchronous communication in time and
? 2006 FQS http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/


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