Recently I have had an on-going discussion with one of the team at Senatus about whether we should be audio-recording our interviews. This could be either by making an audio-recording on our mobiles phones,using the ‘dictate’ button on Word, or recording the MS Teams meeting (where we woudl have visuals as well as the audio).
I’ll admit, I’m old school. I’ve been taking notes at interviews and hearings since my very first job in employee relations over 25 years ago. I’d like to think that I’ve got quite good at it. I also think it’s not an easy skill to acquire – having to balance taking the notes, whilst actively listening to the interviewee.
The driver for this discussion is the persuit for an accurate, complete, set of interview notes. If we record the interview, we won’t have to worry about whether we missed an important point that the interviewee shared with us. Unless you undertake investigatory interviews frequently, you may not realise the extent that individuals do not speak in the same way as written text. People start sentences but quickly change their minds about how they want to express themselves; they might start a setence three or four times before they settle on the direction of their narrative. Individuals don’t use full stops; we carry on talking, using conjunctives such as ‘and’ and ‘but’. And in the moment, we understand a person because we also interpreting their non-verbal cues, but when you read the transcript it makes no sense at all because of the way that they presented their point. With transcripted interviews, technically, you do not need interviewees to sign-off the interview notes.
The expectation is that if you have recorded an interview, the participant is given a copy of the transcript. However, these transcripts will be full of the extraneous speech, the half-sentences, the unintelligible sentences. So, when you download the interview transcript, you have to edit it to remove any extraneous speech in order for the transcript to be meaningful. Even after you’ve undertaken this edit, these transcipts are often hard to read due to the interactions between the interviewer and interviewee. Each party might interrupt the other, finish each others’ sentence, talk over each other. As such, the transcripts do not support easy analsyis of the evidence. I’ve also learnt that some people don’t recognise their speech when you provide them with the transcript of what they have said – which throws up (unwarranted) issues of credibility on the part of the inteviewer.
With handwritten inteview notes, you will not be able to capture every word the interviewee has said, but you will automatically filter out the half sentences, or any comments that appear repetitive. We inform interviewees that it won’t be a verbatim document, so participants don’t expect us to capture every single detail. They are also informed that they can add to the interview notes when they review them. The format of the drafted notes will also be presented in a way that enables easy analysis.
From personal experience there is no ‘easy’ way to manage interview notes. Note taking can be a laborious and time consuming task. However, I subscribe to the belief that spending time drafting the interview notes after the interview enables you to get closer to the evidence, which both influences your interview prep for future interviews and helps you pull the investigation report together into a coherent and logical presentation.
Maybe this is just confirmation bias, but I recently came across an article by Rutakumwa et al. (2021) on this very subject that supports my personal view based on interviewing thousands of people over the last twenty or so years. I thought I’d share their findings. This won’t be a ‘spoiler alert’: their conclusion was that handwritten interview notes is considered to be the better approach in certain circumstances.
- Audio-recordings are considered to provide more accruate transcripts and therefore ‘better’ interviews (Green and Thorogood, 2009; Lee, 2004; Paulus et al., 2017; Tuckett, 2005).
- However, having a recording device in an interview influences the interviewee’s level of contribution (Rapley, 2004; Nordstrom, 2015). Whilst as investigators, we know that we will manage the recording in terms of confidentiality and integrity (as described to the interviewee), the interviewee may not feel the same. The interviewee may self-edit if they know that they are being recorddd and this will limit the amount of evidence they provide the investigator. Clearly, not informing the interviewee that we are recording them is unethical and would demonstrate a lack of integrity on our part if we did that.
- Furthermore Nordstrom’s (2015) research found that even the existence of a recording device will lead to some interviewees to self-edit.
- Nordstrom’s (2015) research considered the extent to which recording inteviews are normalised across different cultures, race, age, class, and politics. Whilst one interviewee might be happy to be recorded, the next will not. Or if they reluctantly agree to be recorded, they may self-edit.
- Even if an interview is being recorded, the interviewee may ask to go ‘off the record’. In those instances, the interviewer will need to make hand-written notes. And it is not always clear (to me at least), when the interviewee is happy to be ‘on the record’ again. Sometimes an ‘off the record’ comment can evolve into a 10 minute explanation, which may contain important evidence that you do want to capture as an interviewer.
- That an effective inteview arrives from an interviewee feeling comfortable talking to the interviewer about a particular topic (Oakley, 2016).
- Rutakumwa et al’s. (2021) research found that when interviewers were trained in hand-writing notes, the accuracy and quality of the notes was found to be similar to audio-recordings.
In essence, the issue of recording interviews is about trust, which in turn impacts on the overall quality of the interview. Whilst the transcript from an audio-recorded interview might be more accurate, it might lack depth in terms of evidence collated. If the inteviewee trusts the interviewer, then audio-recording might be beneficial and easier for the interviewer. But to what extent does the interviewee and the interviewer understand the level of trust between them when they meet for the first time to undertake the interview? Perhaps the safest approach is to keep to hand-written notes. This will generate a better outcome in terms of the quality and depth of evidence, which is crucial in any investigatory interview.
References
Green J and Thorogood N (2009) Qualitative Methods for Health Research. London: Sage.
Lee RM (2004) Recording technologies and the interview in sociology, 1920–2000. Sociology
38(5): 869–889.
Nordstrom SN (2015) Not so innocent anymore: making recording devices matter in qualitative
interviews. Qualitative Inquiry 21(4): 388–401.
Oakley A (2016) Interviewing women again: power, time and the gift. Sociology 50(1): 195–213.
Paulus TM, Jackson K and Davidson J (2017) Digital tools for qualitative research: disruptions and
entanglements. Qualitative Inquiry 23(10): 751–756.
Rapley T (2004) Interviews. In: Seale C, Gobo G, Gubrium JF, et al. (eds) Qualitative Research
Practice. London: Sage, 15–32.
Rutakumwa, R., Mugisha, J.O., Bernays, S., Kabunga, E., Tumwekwase, G., Mbonye, M. and Seeley, J., 2020. Conducting in-depth interviews with and without voice recorders: a comparative analysis. Qualitative Research, 20(5), pp.565-581.
Tuckett AG (2005) Part II: rigour in qualitative research: complexities and solutions. Nurse
Researcher 13(1): 29–42.