Hej Per

We have done both; letting someone else transcribe and transcribing ourselves. I have only done my own transcribing once and do not remember even thinking of that when I did the interviews. In another study my PhD did the interviews, and some of the transcriptions, but I think the decision on who was going to transcribe was done after the interviewing. So at the time, she did not know if she was going to do the job or not. Regardless of who does the transcriptions, you have to know the material very, very well - in practice you may save yourself the first initial reading of the text. When you listen to the interviews (when you do them or when you write them) you may also be influenced by the person who speaks, more than when you only read. Thus, there are several ways of getting familiar with the content - with and without the additional information that comes with either (a) meeting someone, or (b) listening to someone, or just (c) reading printed text. Regardless, it is important that people did not meet or hear the individual also contributes in the analysis (to compensate for the potential bias that comes with closer contact with the informant).

Both arguments are valid.  It's a matter of choice.  I transcribed my first few interviews myself but realised that my time could be much better spent reading and thinking, so I found a transcriber and I have no regrets.  She did an excellent job very quickly, which made the interview material available to me at a much earlier stage than if I'd done it all myself.  She also got very engaged with the research subject and material, which was an interesting spin-off - there is value in itself in stimulating thought and interest widely.

good luck!  Sue

In have also done both, and do not think that whether I transcribed or another did had any impact on the accuracy of the transcriptions and never figured in to how many questions were asked. I found that when I transcribed it took more of a bite out of my time than I thought necessary.

I have done both, also. When not transcribing, I've spent a lot of time reviewing recordings to become more familiar with it anyway, as transcripts don't always convey the same tone as a recording. So in that sense, it saved me some time to have others transcribe but not all the time.

The other side of this is, if there is that much potential for contamination introduced into the interviews based on the potential for doing more work, I think that speaks to the staff involved greatly. Qualitative, interview-based research is arduous work that has a lot of potential for contamination by staff, and I would be wary of brining on any staff that are more focused on immediate demands than the need to produce a quality product.

Good point about the tone of the recordings being missed, Michael. We address this concern using field notes during interviews, and by listening to the recordings.

It looks like you have encountered staff problems with the transcribing in terms of contamination. I would be interested in hearing more about that.

I wouldn't say Ive had staff problems regarding transcribing, but in general with staff not having being fully invested in a project which resulted in its own set of problems. When staff view their role in research as a mere educational requirement or contractual obligation, they are less likely to be invested in the outcome, thus might cut corners to get their bare minimum (or less) done. Having done most of my research in clinical settings, I've spent a lot of time trying to find the "buy in" for non-researchers working with me on studies. The same goes when working with undergraduate assistants, done are stellar and some are... not so much. If we don't soak to their motivation, though, we run the risk of shoddy work, either contaminating our data or not fully exploring potential issues.

Hi Per, Qualitative research is hard work, one should make up their mind of starting a research project which involves qualitative analysis with knowing the fact that it might take much more time than other forms of analysis. Coming to your question regarding analysis: it is always good to know your interview material inside out, now this can be done either by transcribing it yourself or by listening to it carefully a good few times just to note the tone, verbal clues etc. so you can get a good feel for the entire conversation you have had and can confidently report it in your paper. Transcribing the interview more than anything else depends upon the time you have at hand, if you can devote it why not? But if you can't: get it transcribed and listen to the interview with the transcription to add your notes reg tone etc.

And ofcourse, if transcribing is coming to one's mind while conducting an interview: just leave it....not worth doing then!!!

Hope this helps :0

Hi,

I would say that it depends on what kind of analysis you are going to perform. I suppose there  is a difference between conducting content analysis and for instance  narrative analysis. It also depends on the project characteristic and the time frame. In smaller evaluation projects I have used transcribers (to save time) or sometimes only transcribed meaning units instead of the whole texts. A pragmatic approach of course. To compensate for not transcribing yourself you can always listen to your recordings, If you work in bigger projects you may have the time to transcribe yourself, but also to read your text repeatedly (which I personally think is most important). An advantage with only reading and not listening on the other hand, is that you see what is actually being said in a much clearer way.

Does anyone know of any published work related to this topic?

Jonas: Maybe in Steinar  Kvale's good old book about interviewing?