Dear Raja'a,

there is no hard and fast rule regarding recording of writing an answer, but but writing will definitely take a lot of time and resources.

Another concern about writing answer instead of recording, writer may add some irrelevant information or may translate the actual wording, so do please take into consideration these points. 

Hello

A few remarks

consider the influence of an interview situation with a third party not involved directly but who is an influence any way.

is there an agreement with the interviewee

It depends on the skills of the assistent (which you can assess or train)

It depends on the purpose of the interview (research questions)

I am facing a similar dilemma in my research, which is being conducted in (high security) prisons. As tape-recorders are not allowed except for exceptional circumstances, I have honed a pen-and-paper note taking method(ology). P. Pelto's book Applied Ethnography (Left Coast Press 2013) discusses this, among other issues.

I would say, yes, it is methodologically sound to handwrite responses during an interview. Being the interviewer myself - and having no assistance- the only problem I find is maintaining eye contact/rapport, whilst simultaneously taking down notes, which are also legible for when I am transcribing. As long as your assistant data collector is well trained/fast/writes legibly, it should not be a problem. I am still training myself in all of the above. 

The obvious goal is to get the best data possible within the circumstances where your research is actually being done. I also have done work where it is not possible to do recording, and you are fortunate that you can use assistants to write down responses. My recommendation in that case would be to give the assistant a structured recording form for making notes, with one page for each major question in the interview.

Title: Research in Health Care: Concepts, Designs and Methods

Authors: Julius Sim, Chris Wright

Publisher: Nelson Thornes, 2000

This text discusses the value of handwritten notes vs recordings in the chapter on "Recording and organizing data from exploratory studies". They point out that handwritten notes can be quite beneficial where you may have suspicion from participants about every word being recorded. This may be a factor in your study from what you have described.

Obviously real-world constraints means ideal research methods have to be compromised (ie recording interviews vs note-taking).  I have been fortunate enough to use recorded interviewed data which I later transcribed.  The benefits being that you can pick up on things that you may have missed during the interview plus the data is in it's 'purest' form.  My only practical piece of advice to hand note taking during an interview would be to try and capture the intonation of the spoken words as you can gain valuable insight from this. Some examples, such as bold to emphasise, larger letters for decisive spoken words, smaller or lighter letters for quietly spoken words, dots (....) to capture hesitation and pauses, etc, etc. Also make a note of nervous laughter, coughing, etc as this too can be meaningful in the context of speech.  Just some thoughts - all the best

From experience recording is infinitely better...small comments and nuances you miss with taking notes.  If there is a choice, record and have transcribed.  (11 years of qualitative research experience including PHD)....

I did the same for my stage 1 exploratory case study (phd preliminary research) where I interviewed 5 individuals (key informants) and I merely use field-note instrument (see memo-taking). I believe as long as you managed to get the main point correctly then it should not be a problem, yet voice-recording is always the best (as qualitative data requires interpretation: intonations, feelings, emotions, etc.). 

I agree with most of the responses, which emphasize that recording captures more information than note-taking (tone of voice, pauses, etc.), even by someone who's  proficient in shorthand, and should be used except when prohibited OR when the interviewee is uncomfortable with being recorded, which may influence the responses. There's also the issue of how the presence of a third person would influence the interview; I don't know if anyone has studied this, but it's certainly something that should be considered. 

This also depends on the purpose of the study. If the interview is simply survey-type data collection where the goal is just to get the main point of each response, recording is obviously less important than in a true qualitative interview in which the goal is to discover the participant's perspectives on the issues addressed..

I have done both recording and note taking and while recording I think allows for greater data capture (with some pitfalls, as already pointed out), note-taking is sometimes the only option. When relying on notes I find it quite useful to sit and write a diary entry of what I got from that interview (respondent's body language, tone of voice etc. at different points in that interview, points of contention etc.) straight after. Then, when I go back over the notes from that interview, I also have another source of information about what the interview was like, beyond just the words the respondent used. This way you can capture some of the non-verbal communication and other elements of the interview.

Good point, Jennifer. I recommend doing this for recorded  interviews as well, to capture non-verbal aspects of the interview, as well as what happened before and after the recorder was on. I typically dictate these notes into the recorder immediately after I leave the interview setting, such as sitting in my car, and then transcribe them as soon as I get back to my computer, adding more points from memory.

Recording always helps. Writing may be slow, unless you are good with short hand writing, even then, nothing can be more effective than recording as it helps capture minute details and effective reproduction is possible at a later stage while transcribing.

It requires a great deal of speed in writing to capture all that a respondent  is saying in in depth interviews. Where this is possible, it is good method but because of the danger of missing some aspect of what is shared, permission should be obtained  from the respondent to record the interview and this can be transcribed supplemented by the written notes.

If the respondent shows any discomfort about the interview being recorded,  it should not be done as every effort should be made to protect the patient's confidentiality. It also depends on the subject of research, if recording would expose the respondent to any form of risk, someone with verbatim writing skills should be engaged for the interview in order to protect the research participant. 

Of course, there was a time, not too long ago, when recording equipment was either unavailable, extremely obtrusive or expensive, and of limited quality. Taking written notes can add to recorded data, can add invivo fieldnotes on nuances, tone and other attendant data. Again, if the participant is willing I'd always advise writing notes as well. I undertook two in-depth focus groups not too long ago. Both were recorded on high quality recorders. I then succeeded in wiping the first recording and running out of battery for the second. Fortunately, my colleague was taking notes and we saved the data - still retaining methodological quality by reflection and sharing back of our notes.

I think taking notes is a very useful supplement to recording. But there are occasions when recording is inappropriate and one may just not get access if the interview involves recording - I was not able to record interviews with Irish people in England during the IRA bombing campaign in 1980s for example as though they trusted me they did not want anyone else hearing what they said. The other advantage of taking notes I found was that while you paused and finished writing up what someone had just said, it did not interrupt the flow of conversation so much as give them time to ponder on the response they had just given, and then they would answer further on that topic - this often produced the most interesting material.

If the interviewee is prepared for researchers to take notes for future use but not for a tape recording to be made, you don't have much choice. Two people, one to take main responsibility for questions, the other for note-taking is best. But you might want to swap roles through the session because taking the notes is tiring. You might alter the interview style so that the kinds of questions you ask only require short answers. Surveys are like this; especially if you are on your own your interview might take more the form of orally answered printed up survey with a detailed form in front of you. When you write up your research you can address all the constraints you faced and defend why you took the course you did to record the testimonies or, alternatively, note observations and proceed more like a journalist.

In my qualitative research with large banks who are typically very sensitive and risk-avers about sharing internal data with external people I have always experienced the challenge to convince the organization to allow me record interviews and conversations. As a result, during my PhD, I dedicated many training days to practice my typewriting skills, both speed and accuracy. I knew that my possibilities for generating novel insights and publishing them in academic outlets depended to a large extent on the quality and depth of the data that I generated through my field research so I felt under high pressure and viewed this investment as a good use of my time.

Initially, I experienced a great difficulty in typewriting on my computer to capture spoken words to the extent possible. Fortunately, I was not alone and we did the interviews in groups of 2 people. With two people typing and switching roles multiple times during an interview (one person typewriting, the other person focusing more on listening, preparing, and then posing the next question), we were able to capture approximately 70 percent (estimate) of spoken words, depending on how fast an interviewee would talk. In some cases we would kindly ask the interviewee to lean back, reflect, and respond to our questions with calmness to ensure a pace that was beneficial for both insight generation/reflective conversation as well as capturing the data in written form. 

Another difficulty I experienced was that the typewriting was disturbing for some interviewees. Some interviewees got used to it very quickly and after a few minutes stopped being irritated, resulting in a great interview. In other cases an interviewee would be disturbed by the interviewer typewriting and in this case it was more difficult to establish a good conversational relationship within such short timeframe. Obviously, the quality of the interview and generated data would suffer. In some cases, I would actually stop typewriting, focusing on paying closer attention to the person sitting in front of me, looking into the eyes, showing interest through body language, etc. and then taking notes with a pen and paper instead that i felt less disturbing in the moment. I also experimented with using an external keyboard attached to an iPad that makes less noise than the typical PC keyboard. 

Another key difficulty I experienced was a mental challenge. Sometimes I noticed that my mind, concentration and attention would shift more toward the note-taking and writing rather than the conversation and interview. I recognized the risk of becoming some sort of recoding machine and loosing the social human skills in the moment to ensure a great interview. In these cases, the quality of the interview would suffer a lot because I would not be able to ask the right follow-up questions, to actually understand what the participant was talking about, to pick up important cues, etc. I recognized that over the years, the more interviews I did, the better I became at multitasking. Somehow through a lot of practice I developed a skillset that is to simultaneously write/take notes and listen/converse with the person I am engaging with. It takes a great deal of technical skills / professional typewriting skills to make this routine task so "automated" that the mind is freed up for the much more complex and creative task of conducting the interview and generating new insights through the expert conversation.

It is also a function of how familiar you are with the topic of study. For example, in a project I worked on in my post-doc phase, the research topic was related and built upon my phd work so I was better able to blend typewriting and interviewing as my mind had more available cognitive capacities. 

It is also a function of how familiar you are with the context and field site. In my case, I have worked multiple times with one single bank and by now I know this bank inside out. As a result, when an interviewee uses certain technical or functional language or some jargon I am not irritated anymore and don't stumble upon it. It doesn't distract me anymore and I can focus on my job, i.e., generating qualitative data of use for research even without using a recording machine. 

In general, as humans we have limited cognitive capacities and I always noticed that I need to go to my absolute limits and use maximum energy to be able to conduct a high-quality interview without a recording machine. Typically after one or two interviews I would be so exhausted that I needed a longer working break to recuperate. In addition, my arm muscles needed relaxation and I felt as if I had done sports.

Let me also add that I complemented any notes/typewritten text from interviews with additional notes about observations, cues picked up, etc. after each interview.

Today, I consider the skill set of conducting high-quality research interviews and capturing at least the important and essential data without having to use a recording machine a huge asset. I have experienced that in many cases an interviewee will be more relaxed when he/she knows that the interview is not being literally tape-recorded. I have also experienced that you save so much time. Transcribing a tape-recorded interview takes you a whole working day and if you conduct up to 100 interviews for a single paper project, this is a real bottleneck. I prefer having the text right there after an interview and immediately being able to enter the open coding stage asap after each interview. This, I find, is much more effective rather than waiting for a tape-recorded interview to be transcribed professionally (taking 1 week at least) or doing it yourself (pain, pain, pain). 

"I make it a practice to tape record and fully transcribe all interviews. I explain this honestly: I have great difficulty listening, writing, and thinking all at the same time. (Thomas 1995: 16)"

Thomas, Robert J., 1995: Interviewing Important People in Big Companies. In: Rosanna Hertz/Jonathan B. Imber (eds.): Studying elites using qualitative methods. Thousands Oaks: Sage.

However, I agree with Robert that you need to be prepared for refusals and note-taking. In order to capture as much information as possible, I look for a quite place immediately after the interview and dictate my recollections of the interview based on my notes. In my experience, this produces more information than simply transcribing notes because writing often has an additional selection effect.

I think it also depends on your methodology and theoretical position and the purpose of the interview - for example, what weight you give to verbal & non verbal responses. In my PhD I transcribed recordings and written notes (mainly written notes) and sent them to the interviewee and asked for 'corrections' and then where I could based a second interview on these and checking on my initial thematic analysis. This is because it was Action Research,  and I  wanted to minimise researcher power to interpret. I recorded focus groups as well as took notes - I video recorded when people were ok. But I was only able to share the final analysis with these because of practical constraints. The problem always seems about how you can shift power to interpret towards the interviewee - although this doesn't mean you get a 'truer' account: it might be more authentic but who knows what is going on for them?! 

Dear Yahia,

My apologies for addressing only the first part of the question. In response to the second part, I am very reluctant to recommend having an 'assistant data collector' at the interview. The presence of a third person fundmentally changes the interview situation. Everything is said with a witness present. Although this is technically equivalent to having the interview recorded, the social situation is quite different.

Dear Yahia,

My points are more to the depth and the nature of the of data that you would collect in the manner you outline.  First point is the accuracy of having a note taker record you  interviews.  Interviews have a number of measures related to "depth" of information that you can receive.  The first layer would be the a representation of what an individual said during an interview.  This would be an accurate recording of what type of  topical response the interviewee gave. Next would be not only the topical response but a verbatim record of what the interviewee's response. The following layer would be not only the verbatim response but a recording of the interviewee’s speech pattern as in accordance with discourse analysis.  However, placing all this aside a recording of the interview gives you a method of confirming what was said. The accuracy of the data can be confirmed.  This is important regarding the rigour of your research, “how methodologically sound is your research”.   

Now to the point raised by Mr. Glaser, the interview process is a social construction of knowledge that occurs between all of those present at the time of the interview.  Having a note taker plus your self and the interviewee creates a traid of social construction that will have to be explained within your research, i.e.

1.      What affect did the note taker have on the interviewee’s response?

2.      What affect did the take taker have on how you conducted the interview?

3.      What affect did you have on the note taker?

4.      What affect did the interviewee have on the note taker?

For each of these points I raise needs to be discussed because they all have an affect on the social construction of knowledge that is being generated by the interview experience. For more on interviews and interview technique refer to the work by Minichiello 3rd edition chapter 4.  In this text the reference to note taking refers to the interviewer and not a third person.

(1) I agree with Jennifer that it's imperative to sit down after  you interview someone and write out your notes. Sit in your car or go to a local you-know-where. This is where having a structured or semi-structured interview instrument is critical, you can remember more clearly what the respondent said about a specific topic. (2) Even when recording, I tell students to take notes anyway, you can't count on the technology working. (3) When I am running a focus group, I try to have an assistant record the participants' answers, so that I can keep the discussion moving along. (4) Finally, I am fortunate to be a pretty fast typist. I take a small laptop, and ask the respondent if it's OK if I take notes on my computer. I leave my computer on my lap so it's not sitting on the table between us. I also give the respondent the opportunity to read my notes, just so they can be sure I've recorded the essence of their comments. No one has ever taken me up on that offer. I can capture practically every word they say. No, I don't know what effect the use of that style of taking notes has on the substance of what the respondent says. You have to think about your research question (how critical that notes be exact), how will your respondents view or look upon the technology, and also, have they had an opportunity to build a trusting relationship with you.