Welcome Bron and Suzanne!
Bron, I just posted a thread about videoconferencing and interviews. I hope you will share your experiences and what you learned from the process of planning and conducting interviews in SKYPE.
Best,
Janet
Janet Salmons
Posts made by Janet Salmons
Visit the top level of the discussion forum to see more discussion threads and resources. Please feel free to share your own examples, including books or articles that may be of interest to others. And do post your questions-- Cases contributors and I are happy to share our thoughts, insights and suggestions.
Welcome to Part 4: Visual and Verbal Interviews: Conducting Research in Meeting or Videoconference Spaces!
This is a Q & A and discussion about Chapters 8-10.
The researchers for these chapters chose to use videocalls-- such as Skype- or online meeting spaces- such as Elluminate (now BlackBoard Collaborate) or some combination of technologies.
Videocalls allow researcher and participant to see each other. The researcher may use this exchange to observe the participant and collect data about non-verbal cues, affective responses and/or expressions. The chat area can also be used for posting questions or sharing links or other notes related to the interview.
Or the researcher can simply use it as a free VOIP communication for audio, when telephone interviews are too expensive.
The multichannel meeting space contains all of the above and more, in terms of communications options.It allows for videoconferencing and chat. As well, the shared whiteboard allows for many other interview options.The web tour function allows researcher or participant to view and discuss websites that represent some aspect of the research phenomenon
One element of the E-interview Research Framework is the Typology of Online Visual Interview Methods. This model explains that research participants can share and view images of the phenomena of the study, or generate images within the interview. These approaches can be used to communicate abstract ideas with visuals such as diagrams or visual maps. Visual elicitation techniques common to fields like sociology and anthropology can be used, with images or media generated by researcher or participants. Visual generation, creating images within the interview, allows participants to respond visually to the question, drawing or mapping a response to the interview question. Some of these techniques are used in the interviews conducted by contributors to Cases in Online Interview Research.
If you are interested in visual interviews, please note that an entire chapter of Online Interviews in Real Time is dedicated to the topic. Also, I recently recorded a presentation made at the TQR conference. You can view the presentation and download the handout.
Please post your thoughts and questions about using live, visual ICTs for research interviews? If you've conducted interviews using these tools-- or are considering it-- please share your ideas so we can learn about them.
This discussion thread offers a place to discusst Chapters 4 - 7 and your examples of research interviews in virtual worlds. Two of these chapters are about such interviews-- let's start by discussing ideas and recommendations for virtual world interviews contained in Chapters 4 and 5.. In Chapter 4, Dr. Cabiria identified some best practices, as well as some unresolved questions about the protection of digital identity of participants.In Chapter 5, Ann Randall looked at potential interviewer effects. (You met Ann this week in the webinar.)
Please post your thoughts and questions about these two chapters, as well as your own plans or designs for research interviews in virtual worlds or games? How are you preparing to interview-- or how have you interviewed-- avatars as an avatar?
Here are two studies that might interest you:
- Barratt, M. J. (2012). The efficacy of interviewing young drug users through online chat. Drug and Alcohol Review, no-no. doi: 10.1111/j.1465-3362.2011.00399.x
Abstract:
Introduction and Aims.Despite the fact that most young people who use ‘party drugs’ also use the Internet, accounts of drugs research involving qualitative interviewing using real-time instant messaging or online chat are yet to be published. This paper assesses the efficacy of conducting qualitative research interviews with young party drug users through instant messaging.
Design and Methods.In 2007–2008, 837 Australian residents who reported recent use of psychostimulants and/or hallucinogens and participated in online drug discussion completed a web survey and a subsample of 27 completed online interviews (median age 21, range 17–37, 59% male).
Results.Experienced drug users were more likely to volunteer to be interviewed than novices. The time and space flexibility provided by the online interviews was convenient; however, interviews were more prone to interruption. Establishing legitimacy, personal disclosure, appropriate linguistic style and humour facilitated the development of rapport and enabled the production of more detailed and in-depth data. These strategies were not successful in all cases and when unsuccessful, interviewees were more easily able to exit the interview by choosing not to respond.
Discussion and Conclusions.Young drug users already using the Internet to chat about drugs find online interviewing an acceptable and convenient way to contribute to research. With adequate preparation to develop technical and cultural competencies, online interviewing offers an effective way of engaging with young people that is worthy of consideration by researchers in the alcohol and other drug field.[Barratt MJ. The efficacy of interviewing young drug users through online chat. Drug Alcohol Rev 2011]
See Wiley Online Library http://bit.ly/whUqZT
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Zalinger, J. (2012). The Story of Ethnochat: Designing an Instant Messaging Program to Conduct Semi-Structured or Unstructured Interviews. In C. Silva (Ed.), Online Research Methods in Urban and Planning Studies: Design and Outcomes (pp. 86-98). doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-0074-4.ch006
Here is a link to the book chapter:
http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/story-ethnochat-designing-instant-messaging/62396Abstract:
Instant Messaging (IM) programs are powerful and unique tools for conducting semi-structured or unstructured online interviews. However, many unanswered questions exist surrounding the use of IM interviewing. This design chapter takes a storytelling approach to answer two specific research questions: (1) Do rich data collected via IM stand the test of time? (2) How can an IM program be built designed specifically for researchers? The chapter is organized into three parts. Part one reviews recent, related research. Part two takes a somewhat unusual approach to answer the research question regarding the long-term power of IM data by re-visiting the author’s experience from 2007 using IM to interview female participants about their feelings using online dating sites. Part three is a detailed description of a prototype IM program, Ethnochat. There are many IM clients in existence, but nothing has been made specifically for professional researchers for semi-structured or unstructured interviews. Having the best tool available will help urban planners conduct their research more efficiently and at a significantly reduced cost.
Jason Zalinger's Academia.edu site:http://independent.academia.edu/JasonZalinger/About