Dear Calvin,

It entirely depends on the research you are performing and the data you are collecting by the interviews.

However, I would think that if the data you are collecting for your research is based on the participants' responses and: 

in such a situation, i don't see why you cannot conduct the interviews as per the the situation. 

Having said this, it is always better to find out the most appropriate mode which is conducive to all participants and adopt that single method. 

Cheers.

Hi Calvin, I've been in this situation too. Participants now seem to expect the option to take part in whichever way suits them best. Skype and phone are pretty much the same, but email is different because people type less than they speak and you can't ask follow-up questions. A useful reference would be a book called Qualitative Online Interviews by Janet Salmons, if you can get hold of a copy. If you want to standardise your method, another option could be online multimedia interviews which all your participants could access and respond to. This has been used with great success in national research in Australia where distance is also a barrier. The reference for that is Stacey and Vincent (2011) Evaluation of an electronic interview with

multimedia stimulus materials for gaining in-depth responses from professionals.

Qualitative Research 11(5) 605–24. Janet Salmons, Kaye Stacey and Jill Vincent are all on ResearchGate I think so it might be worth checking out their other work as well. Good luck!

HI,

you mentioned that you will follow a semi-structured interview, this means it is not full standardized. In General I can say yes for the different methods of data collection. of course it has its limitations, however the strength point is that you can add a beautiful piece in your paper comparing the results and discuss it under different methods of data collection. It will be good if you have adequate sample under each method, lets say around 5.

Good luck

I agree with the comments that Skype and telephone interviews have more in common than either does with the written format necessary for email interviewing. In particular, it is more difficult to use a semi-structured approach with an email interview (although the ability to send a couple of brief "follow-up" questions would help get more content with the email format).

If you do need to use all three interview formats, then you might be able to use a data analysis process that allows you to compare them. For example, a content analytic approach would allow you code the data and determine whether there were similar responses from each type of interview.

Hi Calvin -

"Theoretical" answer - I would keep it simple by looking at it from a triangulation perspective.  Consider each of the sources as a different data set (i.e., you could think of them as three different "interviewers").  Analyze the data from each data set separately and look for similarities (i.e., try to establish credibility).  Since the subject of the interviews is the same, you should see consistency.  You could further assure the credibility of your results with peer reviewers.    

Realistic answer - forget about the written interviewees; you simply won't be able to get the "thick" description you will using a live approach (i.e., no probing, follow-up, etc., questions).  

I've had good luck using both Skype and phone interviews.  One issue that I've run into with Skype, however, is sometimes the clarity of the audio isn't as good as that of a phone.  That has caused transcription problems. 

Dear all, I think the tendency of answers is clear.

I agree with the majority. You can also think backwards from the results you want to achieve:

Do you expect that interviewees with a telephone tell you different things than people in a Skype interview? -> I would say no. That's why mobile operators are so afraid of Skype and VoIP services. They simply substitute telephone calls (another question is if facial expression and gestures during the interviews are part of your analysis). If you code them in the end, there won't be any differences visible.

Consider now e-mail interviews and an oral interview: Do you expect that interviewees in an e-mail tell you different things than people in a interview? --> I would say, yes. Written answers are never spontaneous. They are also not semi-structured. They are full-structured, because you as an interviewer do not have the chance to intervene or change the order of questions or add more. Even follow-up questions won't make them comparable.

I think it depends upon the type of research questions to be asked  and type of respondents. if the respondents are from the profession who are not so busy then they can narrate the answer fully and follow up is no problem and it may  be difficult to get data from busy people. Moreover, it depends upon your own interpersonal skills. 

we have to keep one thing in mind that respondents respond  at the cost of their time.

Regards

Rafique