Tag Archives: interviews

Online Fieldwork in Conflict Affected Areas

When I started my collaborative ESRC funded PhD in September 2019, I imagined I’d spend many months traveling for my fieldwork. My research topic looks at nonviolent responses to armed conflict, and civilians protecting themselves and each other without the use of weapons in violent conflict. During the first 6 months of the programme, I planned fieldwork interviews and workshops, as well as participant observations in practitioner conferences. Ethical and security considerations limited where I could travel, but as my project was a collaborative one with an NGO in the civilian protection sector, I was able to make contacts and plans for travel relatively quickly. When travel restrictions were first imposed in March 2020, I naïvely assumed that I could wait it out; spend a few months on my literature review before travelling, as planned, for my in-person fieldwork. By September 2020, I realised this would not be possible, and I’d need to make alternative plans.

Zoom Interviews and Workshops

Like many other researchers in 2020, I took the decision to move my fieldwork online. While this limited who I would be able to speak to – access to stable internet connections can be tricky in conflict affected areas – I reassured myself that online research could also be an opportunity to reach more people who would either be too busy to meet with me in person, or located in areas I wouldn’t (for financial or ethical reasons) have been able to travel to. I also organised an online workshop with around 20 practitioners, as I was keen to hear conversations between practitioners in a more relaxed environment than one-to-one interviews. While it was relatively easy to schedule this fieldwork (in comparison to face-to-face), there were a number of difficulties of working online this way that I either had not anticipated, or had underestimated.

(Un)social Distancing

Interviews are always tricky, especially when using a qualitative interpretive methodology where I was interested in how people made sense of their work, rather than extracting objective information. Creating a relaxed environment online, I found, was even more difficult. Telling their stories of living and working in armed conflict was an emotional experience for a lot of my participants, and not being able to give them some privacy as I could in a coffee shop by going to order another drink was difficult and felt unnatural. During one interview, the interviewee had a Zoom filter on to hide their background, and I found it very difficult to get them to relax and talk about their own experiences, rather than their organisation. Around 30 minutes in, their dog jumped up onto their lap, which disrupted the background filter so they turned it off. They then showed me around their apartment, and I showed them around mine while we talked about working from home, loneliness, and our fears during the pandemic. When I restarted the interview, the atmosphere had completely changed. They were far more relaxed and conversational, and even went back to previous questions to tell me different stories relating to them.

I realised then that being able to create a shared space with people was an important part of building a rapport. From then on, I asked interview and workshop participants to along bring objects or photographs that described how they felt about their work, and to talk me through specific memories they had. While this didn’t fully replicate my being there with them, I learned a lot from how participants would describe their towns and villages, and how the spaces they worked in shaped their imaginations of it. These object allowed research participants to talk around difficult subjects, and to show me what it was often difficult to tell with words.

Other Challenges

Another important (if slightly obvious) challenge of online research is failing internet connections. I spent months carefully planning an online workshop with practitioners in South Sudan – even down the composition of each breakout group. When the time came, however, unstable internet connections across three continents derailed my carefully drawn plan. Participants were leaving groups quicker than I could readd them, and halfway through telling an important story, people’s internet would cut out and they would leave the call. Having research assistant’s there to handle some of the technical issues was a great help, but having to abandon a plan I had spent hours agonising over was scary. I made the decision to only focus on two of the four topic areas I had planned with more time for each discussion. This meant that even with the technical difficulties, groups still had time for some in-depth discussions. I also had participants send me photographs and voice-notes on WhatsApp, which I then shared with the group. While the workshop was stressful for me, it was a shared and often fun experience. It gave me the opportunity to follow up informally with participants, laugh about the technical issues, and have more relaxed conversations.

Top tips for online research:

  1. Plan:  Spending so many hours planning gave me the confidence to be able to think on my feet and improvise, without having to consult my plans and notes, as I’d learned them by heart
  2. Abandon the plan: While it might seem scary, knowing when to abandon the plan and improvise is important, because you can never foresee every possibility. Some of my best research findings came this way
  3. Keep a diary: Keep a research diary after every interview/ workshop/ conference/ piece of research you do. I find taking a walk and recording a voice-note on my phone straight after allows me to decompress. Even small reflections that you notice at the time but would usually forget can turn into important ideas if you keep a note of them.
  4. Ask your participants what they want: While planning my workshop, I had many exchanges with participants about how best to design the session. Taking photographs worked really well for some interview participants, but could be dangerous for others so finding multiple ways for participants to engage (beyond traditional interviews) is more inclusive.

Although my research has definitely turned out differently to how I’d planned it in a pre-Covid world and online research has been a challenge, it has also allowed me to interview participants in many more projects than my initial plan of three case studies. It also gave me the opportunity to get creative in my research methods. After two pandemic years I was used to improvising when things didn’t go quite right in my workshops and that’s something that will be useful in all future research. I’m hoping to follow up with people in person after completing my PhD but I will keep hold of some of my online methods, and always ask people to bring along objects that represent themselves. My research didn’t go as planned, but Covid has taught us that nothing ever does!

You can contact and follow Louise’s PhD journey using the icons below:

A reflection on the use of in-person, telephone and virtual interviews.

Aimee Morse
Countryside and Community Research Institute
aimeemorse@connect.glos.ac.uk
@06aims

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic I had been planning to carry out in-person interviews with farmers and land managers across England to discuss their experiences of the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund. The easing of restrictions from July 2021 meant that this was still a possibility; however, I offered alternative types of interview to ensure my participants could take part according to their preferences.

The relative merits of face-to-face, virtual (Zoom and similar platforms), and telephone interviews are examined in numerous studies which employ qualitative methodologies (e.g. Carr and Worth, 2001; Glogowska et al., 2010; Trier-Bieniek, 2012; Archibald et al., 2019; King et al., 2019). Though I was aware of the pros and cons of each interview type, I felt my new approach allowed me to explore participants’ experiences of the interview itself in the context of my work. I drew on Holt’s (2010) work with participants in telephone narrative interviews and included reflective questions at the end of my interviews.

Results

46% of my participants were happy to have their interview in person. Several felt strongly about this, stating that it was much better to sit down face to face to discuss their experiences as they felt more comfortable doing so:

Participant: I feel more comfortable talking face-to-face. I think you get better dialogue.

This was largely as a result of being able to read cues throughout the conversation, which provide richness and nuance for researcher and participant:

Participant: This is much better! Yeah, I can react to people, for instance if you give a smile every so often you think ‘I must be doing alright!’ Whereas you just hear sounds on the phone and you’ve got no idea.

Some participants also appreciated being able to point out specific documents and areas of their farm that were relevant to our conversation, something which others felt they were not able to do virtually or over the phone:

Participant: I expect that everything would be more illustrative and so more meaningful.

For some, their preference for speaking in-person was a result of negative experiences during telephone conversations, particularly through cold calls and when the conversations were of a serious nature. Several commented that they had appreciated meeting me at a group event prior to the call, as it gave them an idea of who I was and the work I was completing . This highlights the importance of building rapport with participants, regardless of the interview type.

Though several authors found that telephone interviews were more likely to be shorter than those conducted face-to-face, this was not my experience. In fact, some participants found that, because they could continue with their daily tasks while talking into the phone, they were able to talk for longer than if they had put time aside to sit down for an interview:

Aimee: Was it more convenient to talk over the phone
Participant: Yes, I’m sorting me dinner out!

This raises questions about how focused participants were during the interview; however, telephone participants did not need significant prompting in order to answer a question, nor did they need the questions repeating any more frequently than those who were interviewed virtually or in-person. A preliminary analysis of interview data also shows their answers to be related to the questions being asked.

Virtual interviews were felt to be the best of both worlds, saving time but also offering the visual cues those conducting interviews in-person found so valuable:

Participant: From my point of view it saves time and I much prefer it to a phone thing because being able to see you and speak to you, it’s as good as being in the same place.

Participants who completed an interview virtually did so as they felt comfortable using the tools, and we did not experience any technical issues during the calls. This highlights the importance of a reliable broadband connection and the need to become familiar with virtual tools. Participants noted that not everyone may be familiar with these tools, and recognised that frequent interruptions could have an impact on the interview quality.

Future use

As researchers, we should continue to recognise the value of carrying out interviews in person. Meeting face-to-face allows us the opportunity to build rapport with our participants and provides nuance which may be lacking in other types of interview. However, there is value in considering the other types available to us, for reasons other than cost and efficiency!

Offering participants the opportunity to take part in the type of interview which works best for them can make the research process more accessible and inclusive. Several of my participants also noted the reduced climate impact of virtual and telephone interviews, something which may become an increasingly important ethical consideration in research projects of all kinds.

Bibliography

Archibald, M., Ambagtsheer, R., Casey, M. and Lawless, M. (2019) ‘Using Zoom Videoconferencing for Qualitative Data Collection: Perceptions and Experiences of Researchers and Participants’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919874596. 

Carr, E. and Worth, A. (2001) ‘The use of the telephone interview for research’, Journal of Research in Nursing, 6(1), pp. 511-524, https://doi.org/10.1177/136140960100600107.

Glogowska, M., Young, P. and Lockyer, L. (2010) ‘Propriety, process and purpose: considerations of the use of the telephone interview method in an educational research study’, Higher Education, 62, pp. 17-26.  

Holt, A. (2010) ‘Using the telephone for narrative interviewing: a research note’, Qualitative Research, 10(1), pp. 113-121, https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794109348686.

King, N., Horrocks, C. and Brooks, J. (2018) Interviews in Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, London: SAGE.  

Trier-Bieniek, A. (2012) ‘Framing the telephone interview as a participant-centred tool for qualitative research: a methodological discussion’, Qualitative Research, 12(6), pp. 630-644, https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112439005.

Methodological Plan vs Pandemic Reality

Well, a lot has happened since I first wrote a piece of temporal data and longitudinal research for this blog in November 2018!

At the time, I planned to write some updates on my progress along the way. My research is with asylum-seeking and refugee mothers, focusing on their learning experiences in Wales. My original plan was to try to generate some temporal data, through three phases of interviews (research conversations) and creative methods. My first phase went well. I successfully interviewed 24 women across Wales, 18 of whom did drawings to represent their experiences. I started my second phase in early 2020 and re-interviewed 6 of those women, all of whom did drawings. Then the UK went into lockdown! The global Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns in the UK mean that, like so many PhD researchers, I had to re-plan my project. Adapting and mitigating (as the UKRI asked us to do) while also crisis schooling my children felt like fire-fighting – it often felt like fighting a blazing inferno with a water pistol! However, I am now in the ‘writing up’ stage of my PhD and can reflect a little on how my methods changed and whether I captured that temporal data I wanted.

I chose not to continue with my phase two interviews in the spring and early summer of 2020. Although remote interviewing was promoted by my university as the primary way to adapt interview-based data generation, I felt it was not an ethical option for me. Most of ‘my’ mothers had experienced trauma and now faced exacerbated issues of digital poverty, language barriers and home-schooling/entertaining young children. Internet-based calls were not possible with some of the women, initially, and telephone calls could accentuate any communication difficulties, especially with children needing attention. Additionally, I had conducted my face-to-face interviews in spaces that were familiar to the women and where they had support. Asking mothers to potentially re-tell traumatic stories when they were so isolated during such difficult times did not seem at all ethical. In fact, asking for any continued assistance with my project straight away did not seem ethical. So, I waited a little while and re-focused the analysis of my existing data.

In the meantime, I maintained simple human contact with my participants. I had been communicating with my participants between interviews through email and WhatsApp messages. This was to maintain relationships for the duration of the project and part of my overall feminist and decolonial approach (working together with my participants, rather than appearing to get information before disappearing again). I also simply got on well with some of them! So, it was a natural step for me to exchange messages discussing how we were doing, during the first UK lockdown. During those exchanges some of the women asked me about my PhD progress and I was then able to comfortably ask about their continued participation. I still did not conduct remote interviews but instead requested photographs, with descriptions. I decided to be led by my participants giving them options and letting them choose. As time progressed, I did conduct one remote interview, at the woman’s request and two more women volunteered to participate and chose to do remote interviews too.

The data I had generated for my research therefore reflected two distinct phases, rather than the three I had originally planned; there were pre and post-the March 2020 lockdown. The first phase generated primarily linguistic data with some visual data and the second resulted in primarily visual with some linguistic data. I thought I might have to drop my plans to include temporality (that was not based on the pandemic.) However, as I analysed my data, I was able to find some clear temporal elements that were not just demarked by the pandemic. Some of the women had received Home Office decisions during the time I had got to know them. The impact of those decisions was reflected in the data generated, particularly the images. For example, women who gained refugee status between our first and second interview drew second pictures reflecting more positivity and hope than their first ones. In other stories, I found clear effects of living in limbo with no positive asylum outcome while in others I was able to see the progression with English, work, and life in general that came for those living with refugee status for a while. That temporal data was not generated in the linear and sequential method that I had planned (and perhaps it never would have been). My methods, my data, and my analysis were messier than I’d hoped at the outset; yet they reflected the messiness of qualitative data and the challenges of continuing a research project that changed, forcibly and abruptly with the arrival of Covid-19.

Including the temporal elements of experiences

Capturing the temporal elements of individuals’ experiences  – that’s something I am setting out to do. I really hope I can achieve it! I am a first year PhD student and this blog post piece is about my plans to use a longitudinal qualitative design, primarily using interview-based techniques. My project is about educational experiences for forced migrant parents as they go through the asylum process in Wales. (The term ‘forced migrants’ means, for the purposes of my work, asylum seekers and refugees.) Continue reading →