The Use of Videoconferencing for Qualitative Interviewing: Opportunities, Challenges, and Considerations

Interviewing is a useful method to collect qualitative research data about phenomena that cannot be directly observed. Traditionally, in-person interviews have been perceived as the gold standard because they represent a natural encounter where the interviewer communicates and builds rapport with participants while observing their body language and the environment. In previous years, there has been a debate about the use of the telephone to conduct interviews for qualitative research (Novick, 2008). Telephone interviewing was perceived as a more accepted approach for structured quantitative data collection due to its limited potential to connect with participants, stimulate a natural conversation, and observe nonverbal cues. More recently, with advancements in communication technology and due to the wide availability of the Internet, videoconferencing is gaining increased attention as an alternative to traditional modes of interviews for qualitative research. Videoconferencing as a communication technology allows for a real-time, online synchronous conversation to occur, with the ability to send and receive audiovisual information (Salmons, 2012). Compared with other online methods for qualitative data collection (i.e., email interviews, online forums, and instant messaging), videoconferencing more closely resembles the in-person qualitative interview (Tuttas, 2015).