Skype as a Tool for Qualitative Research Interviews
By Valeria Lo Iacono, Paul Symonds, D. Brown. 2016
532 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Internet based methods of communication are becoming increasingly important and influencing researchers’ options. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technologies (such as Skype and FaceTime) provide us with the ability to interview research participants using voice and video across the internet via a synchronous (real-time) connection. This paper highlights the advantages of using Skype to conduct qualitative interviews and weighs these advantages against any limitations and issues that using this tool may raise. This paper argues that Skype opens up new possibilities by allowing us to contact participants worldwide in a time efficient and financially affordable manner, thus increasing the variety of our samples. At the same time, the use of Skype affects the areas of rapport, non-verbal cues and ethics by creating limitations but also new opportunities. The observations in this paper stem from two different researches, carried out by the authors, on dance (as a form of trans/cultural heritage) and wayfinding (the experience of getting from A to B in various settings). These studies lent themselves to using Skype for qualitative interviews, because of the need to reach an international, varied and purposeful sample. The researchers’ experiences, combined with feedback from participants in Skype interviews, are used in this paper. The conclusion is that, although VoIP mediated interviews cannot completely replace face to face interaction, they work well as a viable alternative or complimentary data collection tool for qualitative researchers. This paper argues that VoIP based interviews offer new opportunities for researchers and should be embraced with confidence.
Subfields: Sociology and Political Science, Human-Computer Interaction
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4b3308bfcffdfeab8516e3a52bb85e161e9b7d36
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In Sociology and Political Science
In Human-Computer Interaction
Citations in the corpus
- Using Zoom Videoconferencing for Qualitative Data Collection: Perceptions and Experiences of Researchers and Participants (2019, background): “Such technologies therefore replicate features of face-to-face interviews (i.e., ability to transmit and respond to verbal and nonverbal cues) while providing unique advantages, challenges, and considerations (Lo Iacono et al., 2016).”
- Experiencing Algorithms: How Young People Understand, Feel About, and Engage With Algorithmic News Selection on Social Media (2021, background): “However, the use of Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) tools may exclude less digitally literate youth (Hanna & Mwale, 2017; Lo Iacono et al., 2016).”