Personal Interviews & Questionnaires: Key Methods for Authentic Report Data Collection

ah welcome back friends in the previous lecture we talked about the various strategies of report writing and there we also discussed two methods of data collection because data collection is an important ingredient in the writing of reports as you remember while talking

about data collection we discussed two methods of data collection one was through observation and the other was through telephonic interviews but then as you might have witnessed these two methods have certain limitations and they cannot stand through two data collection because

of certain difficulties but then as a writer of reports since you understand the importance of data you also would like to know other methods of data collection which can be more authentic because when you make observation you have certain limitations when you want

to collect data through telephones again there are certain challenges but then what actually are the remedies since in telephonic interviews you can hear the voice of the other party and the answers that he provides may also not be representative

the need then is to verify the data which you have collected either through observation or telephonic interview so for that we need to know some other methods the first being is a personal interview while discussing communication we had discussed that face to face communication

is better than other forms of communication why because when you communicate face to face it is not only the words that matter rather the non words also matter and the non words we consider the non verbal behavior of the person right from his dress to his bearing

to the sort of gestures postures and also through use of silence and pauses in and between the words hence face to face communication provides you with an opportunity where you are not only communicating with the person you are also verifying the answer of the person

so personal interview can be defined as a process of seeking information directly through a conversation with the individual now it has so many benefits even though it has some regards also because suppose you want to collect data on a particular problem where you need

to interview so many people of course you will have to undertake journeys and when you undertake journeys in order to interview people based at different locations the trouble of course cannot be written off but then you are going to use personal interview as a sort

of conversation with a purpose it is here that while you start the conversation much care has to be taken as how to initiate how to frame questions and how to frame questions in such a subtle manner that you elicit the response which is required as it is direct

exchange of information you are not only watching the persons movements but then ah at times when you want to have crucial information ah the indians also matters a lot so not only that his voice speak or give clue is facial expressions but then you have to

be an expert one as regards reading peoples facial behavior and of course the general behavior also becomes very explicit because i am i am reminded of ah one quote by freight where he says he who has eyes to see and ears to hear can convince that no mortal can keep

a secret if his lips are silent he is chatting with his fingertips betrayal seems to whose out of him at every pore my dear friends the essence is that in a face to face communication however hard you try your internal emotions are written largely on your face your face

is the index of the mind of course it is only with experienced people who can manipulate their ex ah expressions and also at times manipulate their facial behaviors but then it cannot continue for a long time you can easily understand

in case there is something going to be ah hided by the other person so when you are going to conduct a personal interview there are certain precautions and there are also certain advantages it is actually with an aim to gather information about people s attitudes

and feelings as i have said earlier the feelings of every individual are written on their faces they cannot hide it and it also allows to an opportunity to learn from people with intimate knowledge of a problem which cannot be possible over telephone because you know every every

person ah if if he is at a lofty position an responsible position ah he has certain limitations of time he has also a certain restrictions ah regarding that is closer of certain ah pieces of information as well so in order ah we have to conduct a personal

interview moreover if you have made your own observations about a person so in such a case you can verify and you can supplement the information which you have gathered from either from questionnaire or from observation or from telephones but then in such a situation

you need to practice your own cleverness and you need to practice ah your own experience as how to frame questions so that you may get the requisite answer what actually are the advantages as an interviewer if if you are going to conduct the interview

ah with an aim to have data collection and also it is an interview in a physical setting where two people are together the real control lies with you i mean the interviewer has the full facility of controlling the situation you see you might have framed the question

very carefully but do not underestimate the other person who is going to answer your questions so at times he may ah create such a situation or he may deviate you in such a manner that is why you need to have a proper control with you and a proper intelligence so that you

may bring the interviewee back to the question moreover questions need to be interpreted in a in a in a face to face conversation you have all sorts of facility you may ask all sorts of questions and when you ask questions ah suppose ah the other party is not ready

to answer but then you have that caution and you have that care you can at your best with your experience elicit the proper responses sometimes there are certain ambiguities and this can be cleared this misunderstandings can be cleared in a face to face interview

moreover you can also secure accurately representative replies because people may lie over telephone but they may not lie when you are having a personal interview sometimes it maybe that if you have sorten appointment and you have also told him the nature of the interview

ah there maybe some amount of manipulation but as a careful and intelligent interviewer you will be able to interpret the answers you can also firsthand impressions which will throe light on the data procured by the questions so the need here is to be extra vigilante

when you are having a sort of interview let us try to understand ah certain tips that can be utilized when you are conducting interviews for data collection you need to understand that you are clear not only about the nature of the questions but also about the time and

information an interview cannot go for a longer time you have and and the people you are going to interview they maybe b g professionals so you are to frame your questions in such a manner that not only does it save time but it also allows you to get the requisite responses

meaning thereby make your questions as standard that any attempt by the interviewee to deviate you may not work you can always because you have the control with you you can always bring the interviewee back to the point by using your own communication skills it is not that

only the interviewee is very communicative you have to be extra communicative meaning thereby you have to go an extra mile to get the requisite response if you feel ah that certain things have to be jotted down you can jot down

but many people would not allow that is why this another facility that certain interviews are also recorded in a digital age of today you have all facilities but then depending upon the nature of the person depending upon the need of the situation you need to frame

your questions in such a manner ah that you can derive or you can have proper answers remember personal interview can be one of the authentic methods of data collection because whatever you are asking you are not only being answered but you are also being answered not

only vervally you are also being answered non vervally that is why it has an advantage over other methods of data collection suppose the interview starts and there is a question where you feel ah that the other person starts giving arguments remember it is always better

to allow more room to the other party to allow more room to the interviewee and from your point of view restrict yourself from our wing there is no need of much argument let the other parties speak you simply have to derive the facts you simply

have to derive the right answers allow more room and by doing that you will assume a subordinate role meaning thereby you will give a dominant role to the other party you know sometimes if you allow some more space to the other party you will find that you get benefited

by getting more answers moreover as a careful communicator you have to listen very carefully very attentively every word that the person speaks may give you some clue may give you some symbolic hint and then it is always better not to put certain embarrassing questions

of course the main focus of your interview is to collect the data but please do remember that if you put a very straight question which some way or the other is going to affect his image you will not be able to get answers that is why you need to frame your questions

in such a subtle manner that the other party doesnt get affected moreover you get answered thats very important specially since you have to travel ah to a distant place in order to get an interview it is always better to seek the appointment ah in advance people may be

busy people may have some other commitments some other appointments so tell him why you want to meet him and what is the purpose of this interview and also be courteous and tactful throughout the less you speak the better allow the other person to speak more and please

keep your eyes and ears open because you have to take immediate feedback which will work wonders in terms of providing data with the help of personal interviews but please do remember that personal interview as it is a costly affair and it also has lots of regards

of journey it is advisable to go for another method which is questionnaire now in order to get data from questionnaires let us try to understand what are questionnaires and how it can be helpful ah in getting data through questionnaires one advantage that

questionnaire has got is it saves you from the regards of travel if you frame one questionnaire but then much depends upon how you frame the questionnaire with one questionnaire you can distribute or you can send the questionnaire to different people spread out in different

different ah ah locations you have to mail questionnaire to all members but then you have to decide ah which people or which segment of people ah are important in providing you the representative data so you have to do a lot of exercise while you are going to frame

a questionnaire ah to elicit proper response moreover it saves time because it saves you from the hazards of journey and people are also you know b g people at times they may not give you ah much time ah to answer when you seek even an interview then if you send

a questionnaire maybe the questionnaire ah is sent back but sometimes you may also have to pay for the extra postage ah so that ah the other party may not feel any pain of spending anything on ah questionnaire you can frame questionnaire in such a way ah that every

question if it is a question which is ah closed but then for that you have another way and that is follow up question which can be also situated just after the closed questions now since it is a convenient method for the respondent you have a deliberate chance to look up information

specially if you are working on a very complex problem and you send questionnaire because questionnaire allows other people to answer it at their liberty at their laser so that us why it is convenient moreover as in personal interview you can have the control

here there is nothing ah like control and the bias of the interviewer is eliminated there is no interviewer who can control the situation so ah the respondent is fearless ah it has also been seen ah that people who do not want to ah write their names or disclose

their names ah that also can be allowed ah they can keep their names secret ah moreover there is no need of interviewee to be identified your main concern is to get the data and and not the name of the person ah if you standardize the question i think

that will work wonders for you but then there are certain disadvantages also every coin has got two sides my dear friend even though it may be distributed to large number of people ah it is it at times becomes quite difficult in securing replies in the nature of questions

there are some questions which many people would not like to answer people ah decide to answer based on their likes and dislikes sometimes ah the ah number of ah questionnaires you have sent is often not the number of questionnaires that you receive because many people take

it very casually and that is where ah the need of personal interview arises so in case the response is a small the data that you ah get through these questionnaires may not be representative so representative sample cannot be obtained that is that is

one danger in this method of data collection and another impediment is ah that there always is a sort of uncertainty nowadays you will find that people have started sending questionnaires even through mails ah you as a respondent you will at times feel ah that you do not

want to respond to such a questionnaire because you think it is a sort of additional burden ah but then depending upon the nature and the need of data collection ah intelligent people see to it that they send questionnaire by post and also pay for the return post

so that ah by courtesy people may respond moreover ah sometimes people of course they return the questionnaire but the question is inadequately answered it is not answered ah up to ah your expectations answers of some questions may appear very meaningless ine

so hence the ah person who is going to frame the question need to be extra vigilante ah some questions are also left unanswered moreover ah this another danger that is there is a lighting fear ah that complex and confidential information ah people do not want to share

nor do they want to respond cost of per mailing is low but the cost of per return is high so that is that is another ah disadvantage but since your main aim is to collect data ah price or cost does not matter much provided ah the respondents send you back the questionnaires

answered now when you are framing a questionnaire you have to be very careful you know ah since it is it goes to people who are separated by ah geographical distances and time and all ah you need to make your questions questionnaire

very attractive how to do that that is why and and you can also have a long questionnaire but see too long questionnaire often ah becomes unresponded so it is better to keep your questionnaire short and make it very specific ah you can

also divide your questionnaire into two part in the first part ah you may ah provide ah a sort of personal information where people will ah be very tempted to answer ah and and after the personal details you may go go to the required section where you have your desired

questions ah the nature of questions can also be close ended i mean suppose if i if you are going to carry out ah a research on the smoking trends it is always better to ask the question very directly ah rather than asking ah what is your reaction to smoking

so in such a case it is better to ask do you smoke fine and such a question will be closed question the answer will be either yes or no ah sometimes ah sorry sometimes you also may have to ah provide a question based on the rating system the rating maybe one to

ten one to twenty like that and you will provide the question where you ah expect your respondent to answer how to they rate it and then there are open ended questions ah here you are actually giving a choice ah to your respondents to express their own opinion and when they express

their own opinion ah i mean you have to leave some more space because many people feel tempted ah to give you a proper response and here you can also understand people s attitudes and based on so many questionnaires ah in general you can come out with ah the ah trend

of attitudes people have ah to a certain ah matter to a certain aspect and then you also have multiple choice questions here you provide four multiple ah answers and the answers are provided in such a manner ah that the requisite answer ah is given by the respondent

so these are the types of question and when you are going to frame the questionnaires ah please see the language plays a very crucial role make your questions straight and simple as possible you know if the wording of a questionnaire or the phrasing of a questionnaire ah is difficult

or it is linguistically cumbersome people may not respond so what you need to do is you need to make questions as simple as possible and then arrange your questions very logically if you arrange your questions logically ah people feel tempted

to answer them it should not appear that you are asking one question suddenly you jump you know there has to be a coherence not only in the questionnaire but in all sorts of communication especially written communication people love coherence better and then try

to keep your questionnaires short now even if you are working on a very complex problem but let your questionnaire be short sometimes because you know your basic aim for a questionnaire is to get the response and you have certain tricky questions sometimes you have leading

questions no so if there is a tricky question let this question be put either in the middle ah or towards the end not in the beginning and even not towards the end otherwise it will be very difficult to understand it will very difficult to get the answer

so please ah put tricky questions at a particular place so that the respondents may not feel offended moreover you have to avoid leading questions there are certain questions which people would not like to answer for example if a person is asked ah do you drink alcohol

or which brand of alcohol do you take or sometimes if you ask ah do you i mean if a leading if you ask ah which movies do you like fine or sometimes you mention do you read the times of india i mean it maybe a leading question sometimes

people also ask some personal questions which are ah embarrassing so ah it is an advise that let such questions be dropped please divide your questionnaire and let your questionnaire be free from errors you know if if there are grammatical errors ah people would not like

ah to answer to such a question questionnaire because it some way or the other it tells ah them about your background so you need to make your questionnaire free from errors and see that your questionnaire ah is attractive moreover every questionnaire should have a

covering letter because it is the covering letter ah that tells people why they need to answer this question and through covering letter you as an interviewer also are going to assure them that this questionnaire or this response will be kept secret you know

people can answer you only when they know that it is of some ah ah use to you as well as it is not going to do any harm to them ah questionnaire is one of the best methods of data collection but remember in order to get the proper response you need to ask the

right questions it is only the right questions that may ah bring out the right response dear friends let me ah close this lecture by ah quoting ah from john ruskin who says to be able to ask a question clearly is two thirds of the way to getting it answered the meaning

is much of the answer of a question lies in the question itself provided it has been framed ah very meticulously very carefully and very advantageously i do understand ah that ah with these lectures you have understood how to collect the data

ah for a report and once you have collected the data all you need to do is you need to analyze the data organize the data write the outline so that you may start writing the report thank you very much ah wish you all a very

good day ahead