Title: Face-to-face interviews
Course: UGQuants (SSPS) > Section: Survey Design

Face-to-face interviews

In face-to-face interviews, trained interviewers administer the questionnaire personally to respondents. In the course of the interview, the interviewer will record and code respondents’ answers. Face-to-face interviews are generally Pen and Paper Interviews (PAPI) or Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI). The use of face-to-face interviews is a popular method of data collection for well-resourced surveys and is the method of choice for a number of large ongoing surveys including the Scottish Social Attitude Survey, the Scottish Health Survey and the Growing Up in Scotland study.

Picture of interviewer and respondent.

Face-to-face interviews have a number of distinct strengths. Firstly, such interviews are generally regarded as the optimum method to achieve high response rates. Secondly, the use of trained interviewers allows for greater complexity in questionnaire design, both in terms of question content and the questionnaire structure. Similarly, it is generally regarded that surveys conducted via face-to-face interview can be longer in length than those conducted by other means, as the personal, interactive process keeps respondents interested and engaged for longer.

Despite the undoubted strengths of face-to-face interviews, they are not without their limitations. At a practical level, the significant costs associated with this method of data collection mean its use is generally restricted to large, well-resourced surveys. More importantly in terms of data quality, face-to-face interviews are potentially more prone to response bias than other methods of survey administration. Where questions are sensitive or controversial, responses can potentially be affected by what is termed ‘social desirability’ concerns. In other words, respondents may provide answers they feel to be socially acceptable rather than truthful. Whilst this is of course a potential issue with all methods of data collection it is undoubtedly more pronounced with the more personalised method of face-to-face interviews. A further potential issue arising in the context of face-to-face interviews concerns the influence on the respondent of the observable characteristics of the interviewer. In other words, a respondent may answer a question differently depending on characteristics of the interviewer such as age, sex or ethnic background.

Face-to-face interviews may also be used to administer other forms of data collection, such as self-completion questionnaires, biological sampling and other forms of testing.