Hints on Using Skype for Interviews

There are many occasions where you will want to interview your research participants by phone, especially when seeking people who live far away from your Uni or study site but how can this best be done? Whats the best way to record interviews done on the phone? How do you get quality without resorting to taping a speakerphone through the air?

Heres some hints thanks to a Sydney Psych research student PatrickL...

Skype can be used to make calls to landlines as well as to other Skype users.

If you use Skype to make a call, I can highly recommend using  Replay Telecorder to record the Skype session.

The software creates and MP3 or even an avi file if you decide to record video. I having been using it for a long time and it works well.

Cost is $30.  Skype to Skype calls sound quality is outstanding, but if respondent doesn’t have Skype, you can call their land line from Skype at a cost of 3c per minute.  Min. credit purchase is $16AUS.

For more details go to  

http://applian.com/replay-telecorder/

and http://skype.com/intl/en-us/home

thanks Patrick, this ones just for you!!!!!!!

Paper Alert: Transitioning from Clinical to Qualitative Research Interviewing

 

What a great topic for clinicians out there starting out as researchers!!!! Published in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods

Matthew R. Hunt, Lisa S. Chan, Anita Mehta (2011)

Abstract

In this paper one aspect of the transition that must be made by experienced clinicians who become involved in conducting qualitative health research is examined, specifically, the differences between clinical and research interviewing. A clinician who is skillful and comfortable carrying out a clinical interview may not initially apprehend the important differences between these categories and contexts of interviewing. This situation can lead to difficulties and diminished quality of data collection because the purpose, techniques and orientation of a qualitative research interview are distinct from those of the clinical interview. Appreciation of these differences between interview contexts and genres, and strategies for addressing challenges associated with these differences, can help clinician researchers to become successful qualitative interviewers.

...here's a practical quote from the paper..

Learning to conduct effective research interviews is a basic skill for qualitative inquiry. Whether

conducting an ethnography, grounded theory, phenomenology, or most other qualitative studies, the

ability to gather data through interviewing is crucial. There are many types of qualitative interviews

including unstructured, semi-structured and structured interviews (Gubrium & Holstein, 2002; Tod,

2006). In addition, informal interviewing is also used in tandem with participant-observation in some

methodologies (Bernard, 2002; Fontana & Frey, 1994). To support clinicians new to qualitative research

we propose five strategies and approaches that can assist experienced clinicians to conduct successful

research interviews (as defined within a particular methodology or tradition). We recommend that

clinicians acknowledge and reflect critically on their prior interview experience, prepare carefully for

research interviews, maintain awareness of power dynamics within the interview, pay attention to the use

of language and verbal cues, and evaluate their own progress on an on-going basis.

...and the paper ITSELF