Publication type
Survey Futures Working Paper Series
Series Number
2024-02
Series
Survey Futures Working Paper Series
Authors
Publication date
July 15, 2024
Summary:
Live video interviewing emerged as a method for collecting survey data during the COVID-19 pandemic, having rarely been used for survey data collection prior to this. There is now a need to assess experiences and outcomes from studies that utilised video interviewing, partly with a view to informing the future feasibility of the method in different contexts. This paper reports on the experience of the European Social Survey (ESS) with video interviewing, having used this approach as a complementary method to in-person interviewing at its 10th round (2020-2022). The ESS can provide a unique perspective, being the first cross-national survey to use video interviews. In total, 17 countries offered video interviewing alongside in-person interviewing at ESS Round 10. In this paper, we present a range of results based on ESS Round 10 in two main categories. We first look at the effectiveness of the implementation of video interviewing and then compare quality between video interviews and in-person interviews across various indicators, including interviewer effects. The results show that the prevalence of video interviews varied widely between countries, likely relating to national contextual factors. However, in countries where a large share of video interviews was carried out, we found that the interview experience was rated positively, and quality indicators were closely comparable with in-person interviews. These results suggest that future use of video interviewing may be more feasible in some countries that others, but in certain contexts it has the potential to offer an effective complementary option to in-person interviewing.
Subjects
Link
https://surveyfutures.net/working-papers/
#588447