Discuss interview as a technique of data collection.

Elaborate the following:

(a) Personal Interviews

(b) Telephone Interviews

(c) Depth Interviews

Ans.

The interview method of collecting data involves presentation of oral-verbal stimuli and reply in terms of oral-verbal responses. This method can be used through personal interviews and, if possible, through telephone interviews.

(a) Personal Interviews

Personal interview method requires a person known as the interviewer asking questions generally in a face-to-face contact to the other person or persons. At times the interviewee may also ask certain questions and the interviewer responds to these, but usually the interviewer initiates the interview and collects the information. This sort of interview may be in the form of direct personal investigation or it may be indirect oral investigation. In the case of direct personal investigation the interviewer has to collect the information personally from the sources concerned. He has to be on the spot and has to meet people from whom data have to be collected. This method is particularly suitable for intensive investigations. But in certain cases it may not be possible or worthwhile to contact directly the persons concerned or on account of the extensive scope of enquiry, the direct personal investigation technique may not be used. In such cases an indirect oral examination can be conducted under which the interviewer has to cross-examine other persons who are supposed to have knowledge about the problem under investigation and the information, obtained is recorded. Most of the commissions and committees appointed by government to carry on investigations make use of this method.

The method of collecting information through personal interviews is usually carried out in a structured way. As such we call the interviews as structured interviews. Such interviews involve the use of a set of predetermined questions and of highly standardised techniques of recording. Thus, the interviewer in a structured interview follows a rigid procedure laid down, asking questions in a form and order prescribed. As against it, the unstructured, interviews are characterised by a flexibility of approach to questioning. Unstructured interviews do not follow a system of pre-determined questions and standardised techniques of recording information. In a non- structured interview, the interviewer is allowed much greater freedom to ask, in case of need, supplementary questions or at times he may omit certain questions if the situation so requires. He may even change the sequence of questions. He has relatively greater freedom while recording the responses to include some aspects and exclude others. But this sort of flexibility results in lack of comparability of one interview with another and the analysis of unstructured responses becomes much more difficult and time-consuming than that of the structured responses obtained in case of structured interviews. Unstructured interviews also demand deep knowledge and greater skill on the part of the interviewer. Unstructured interview, however, happens to be the central technique of collecting information in case of exploratory or formulative research studies. But in case of descriptive studies, we quite often use the technique of structured interview because of its being more economical, providing a safe basis for generalisation and requiring relatively lesser skill on the part of the interviewer.

The merits of the interview method are as follows:

(i) More information and that too in greater depth can be obtained.

(ii) Interviewer by his own skill can overcome the resistance, if any, of the respondents; the interview method can be made to yield an almost perfect sample of the general population.

(iii) There is greater flexibility under this method as the opportunity to restructure questions is always there, specially in case of unstructured interviews.

(iv) Observation method can as well be applied to recording verbal answers to various questions.

(v) Personal information can as well be obtained easily under this method.

Following are the limitations of this method :

(i) It is a very expensive method, specially when large and widely spread geographical sample is taken.

(ii) There remains the possibility of the bias of interviewer as well as that of the respondent; there also remains the headache of supervision and control of interviewers.

(iii) Certain types of respondents such as important officials or executives or people in high income groups may not be easily approachable under this method and to that extent the data may prove inadequate.

(iv) This method is relatively more-time-consuming, specially when the sample is large and recalls upon the respondents are necessary.

(b) Telephone Interviews

This method of collecting information consists in contacting respondents on telephone itself. It is not a very widely used method, but plays important part in industrial surveys, particularly in developed regions. The chief merits of such a system are:

1. It is more flexible in comparison to mailing method.

2. It is faster than other methods i.e., a quick way of obtaining information.

3. It is cheaper than personal interviewing method; here the cost per response is relatively low.

4. Recall is easy; callbacks are simple and economical.

5. There is a higher rate of response than what we have in mailing method; the non-response is generally very low.

6. Replies can be recorded without causing embarrassment to respondents.

7. Interviewer can explain requirements more easily.

8. At times, access can be gained to respondents who otherwise cannot be contacted for one reason or the other.

9. No field staff is required.

10. Representative and wider distribution of sample is possible.

Following are the limitations of this method:

1. Little time is given to respondents for considered answers; interview period is not likely to exceed five minutes in most cases.

2. Surveys are restricted to respondents who have telephone facilities.

3. Extensive geographical coverage may get restricted by cost considerations.

4. It is not suitable for intensive surveys where comprehensive answers are required to various questions.

5. Possibility of the bias of the interviewer is relatively more.

6. Questions have to be short and to the point; probes are difficult to handle.

(c) Depth Interviews

Depth interviews are those interviews that are designed to discover underlying motives and desires and are often used in motivational research. Such interviews are held to explore needs, desires and feelings of respondents. In other words, they aim to elicit unconscious as also other types of material relating especially to personality dynamics and motivations. As such, depth interviews require great skill on the part of the interviewer and at the same time involve considerable time. Unless the researcher has specialised training, depth interviewing should not be attempted.

Depth interview may be projective in nature or it may be a non-projective interview. The difference lies in the nature of the questions asked. Indirect questions on seemingly irrelevant subjects provide information that can be related to the informant’s behaviour or attitude towards the subject under study. Thus, for instance, the informant may be asked on his frequency of air travel and he might again be asked at a later stage to narrate his opinion concerning the feelings of relatives of some other man who gets killed in an airplane accident. Reluctance to fly can then be related to replies to questions of the latter nature. If the depth interview involves questions of such type, the same may be treated as projective depth interview. But in order to be useful, depth interviews do not necessarily have to be projective in nature; even non-projective depth interviews can reveal important aspects of psycho-social situation for understanding the attitudes of people.