RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

TELEPHONE INTERVIEWING 379
By means of the techniques of content
analysis, elements in the situation which the
researcher deems significant have previously
been analysed by him or her. The researcher
has thus arrived at a set of hypotheses relating
to the meaning and effects of the specified
elements.
Using this analysis as a basis, the investigator
constructs an interview guide. This identifies
the major areas of inquiry and the hypotheses
which determine the relevant data to be
obtained in the interview.
The actual interview is focused on the
subjective experiences of the people who have
been exposed to the situation. Their responses
enable the researcher both to test the validity of
the hypotheses, and to ascertain unanticipated
responses to the situation, thus giving rise to
further hypotheses.
From this it can be seen that the distinctive feature
of the focused interview is the prior analysis by the
researcher of the situation in which subjects have
been involved. The advantages of this procedure
have been cogently explained by Merton and
Kendall:
Fore-knowledge of the situation obviously reduces the
task confronting the investigator, since the interview
need not be devoted to discovering the objective
nature of the situation. Equipped in advance with
a content analysis, the interviewer can readily
distinguish the objective facts of the case from
the subjective definitions of the situation. He thus
becomes alert to the entire field of ‘selective response’.
When the interviewer, through his familiarity with
the objective situation, is able to recognize symbolic
or functional silences, ‘distortions’, avoidances, or
blockings, he is the more prepared to explore their
implications.
(Merton and Kendall 1946)
In the quest for what Merton and Kendall
(1946) term ‘significant data’, the interviewer
must develop the ability to evaluate continuously
the interview while it is in progress. To this
end, they established a set of criteria by which
productive and unproductive interview material
can be distinguished. Briefly, these are as follows:
Non-direction: interviewer guidance should be
minimal.
Specificity: respondents’ definitions of the
situation should find full and specific
expression.
Range and scope: the interview should maximize
the range of evocative stimuli and responses
reported by the subject.
Depth and personal context: the interview
should bring out the affective and value-laden
implications of the subjects’ responses, to
determine whether the experience had central
or peripheral significance. It should elicit the
relevant personal context, the idiosyncratic
associations, beliefs and ideas.
Telephone interviewing
The use of telephone interviewing has long
been recognized as an important method of data
collection and is common practice in survey
research, though, as Arksey and Knight (1999: 79)
comment, telephone interviews do not feel like
interviews, as both parties are deprived of several
channels of communication and the establishment
of a positive relationship (e.g. non-verbal),
and we explore this here. Dicker and Gilbert
(1988), Nias (1991), Oppenheim (1992) Borg and
Gall (1996), Shaughnessy et al. (2003)andShuy
(2003) suggest several attractions to telephone
interviewing:
It is sometimes cheaper and quicker than faceto-face
interviewing.
It enables researchers to select respondents
from a much more dispersed population than if
they have to travel to meet the interviewees.
Travel costs are omitted.
It is particularly useful for brief surveys.
It may protect the anonymity of respondents
more than a personal interview.
It is useful for gaining rapid responses to a
structured questionnaire.
Monitoring and quality control are undertaken
more easily since interviews are undertaken
Chapter 16