Title: Telephone interviews
Course: UGQuants (SSPS) > Section: Survey Design

Telephone interviews

The second type of interview is the telephone interview. Telephone interviews consist of the interviewer making telephone contact with selected sample members and the questionnaire is conducted over the phone. Telephone interviews are generally undertaken from a central administrative base using Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). Telephone interviews share many of the key strengths of face-to-face interviews, including the opportunity to build up a rapport with the respondent and the opportunity to ask more difficult and complex questions. In addition, telephone interviews offer some distinct advantages over face-to-face interviews. At a practical level, telephone interviews can be conducted at greatly reduced administration costs and at far greater speed than their face-to-face counterparts. Furthermore, as respondents enjoy a greater level of anonymity in telephone interviews, they may be more truthful in providing answers, thereby somewhat alleviating ‘social desirability’ concerns. Concerns regarding the influence of interviewer characteristics may be less pressing, too, although they are unlikely to be completely alleviated as personal characteristics such as gender and age may of course still be apparent over the telephone.

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At the same time as sharing some of the benefits and indeed exhibiting some advantages over face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews also share some of the drawbacks.  As noted, although response bias is perhaps a lesser concern due to greater respondent anonymity, the influence of interviewer characteristics and ‘social desirability’ concerns still pose a risk to data quality. Telephone interviews also concede some of the advantages of face-to-face interviews in terms of questionnaire design. It is generally regarded that questionnaires administered over the telephone should not be as complex or lengthy as face-to-face interviews.