Selecting between Questionnaires and Interviews

Questionnaires have two advantages over interviews for collecting research data: The
cost of sampling respondents over a wide geographic area is lower, and the time
required to collect the data typically is much less. Questionnaires, however, cannot
probe deeply into respon dents’ beliefs, attitudes, and inner experience. Also, once the
questionnaire has been dis- tributed, it is not possible to modify the items, even if they
are unclear to some respondents.

The major advantage of interviews is their adaptability. Skilled interviewers can follow
up a respondent’s answers to obtain more information and clarify vague statements.
They also can build trust and rapport with respondents, thus making it possible to
obtain infor- mation that the individual probably would not reveal by any other data-
collection method.

Robert Jackson and J. W. M. Rothney did an extensive follow-up study of 890 adults five
years after their high school graduation. The entire sample was sent a four-page mailed
questionnaire, and a subsample of 50 individuals was selected for a personal interview
that included the same questionnaire items. The researchers found that 83 percent of
the questionnaires were returned, whereas 98 percent of the planned interviews were
com- pleted. Two experienced counselors rated each questionnaire or interview
protocol for ev- idence of personal problems. The mean number of problems yielded by
the questionnaire data was 2.8, whereas the mean number of problems yielded by the
interview data was 8.8. Thus the interview yielded more complete information,
particularly information con- cerning negative aspects of the self.

This advantage of the interview method is offset by some limitations. One is that it is
difficult to standardize the interview situation so that the interviewer does not influence
the respondent to answer questions a certain way. Another limitation is that interviews
cannot provide anonymity for the respondents. In other words, the respondents must
re- veal their identity to the interviewer. Of course, the interviewer can analyze and
report the interview data so that the identity of the participants is not revealed.

The questionnaire is more commonly used in quantitative research, because its stan-
dardized, highly structured design is compatible with this approach. The interview is
more commonly used in qualitative research, because it permits open-ended
exploration of top- ics and elicits responses that are couched in the unique words of the
respondents. How- ever, both methods can be used in either type of research. Robert
Yin, for example, recommends using both methods when doing case study research.