Qualitative Online Interviews

Strategies, Design, and Skills

“The text is an excellent example for providing effective and efficient instruction. Learners can easily navigate the various components, and it can be used for self-study. . . . Marvelous depth of coverage on the online interview process. It is at the leading edge of thinking in the field of e-research.”

“[This book] presents a clear, research-based conceptual framework to understand both the process of qualitative data collection using interviews, as well as ethical and practical considerations associated with design and implementation. This is a most comprehensive book addressing the concepts and protocol of qualitative research methods with particular consideration for computer-mediated thinking, connecting, interviewing, and data collection and analysis. . . . This text is more than a “how-to” volume on qualitative interviewing. This book is rich with the organizational structure of the process of qualitative methodology that enhances the methods!”

“The new edition is timely, and covers relevant areas of using available online media to collect qualitative interviews. Particularly useful as a text to help those who want to do research on global/international participants without being limited by availability of funding for travelling abroad.”

“[This is] a very thoughtful and engaged text on very important 21st century issues. Concepts, even very difficult ones, are explained clearly and gracefully.”

“It provides a one-stop shop for conducting interviews.”

“This book is ahead of its time.  It tackles the complicated matter of merging technology with research in a rather lucid manner.”

“The text provides excellent coverage of up-to-date alternatives to the face-to-face interview. . . . It provides a framework for learning and thinking about online methods, and it provides tools for designing and conducting online interviews.  It is honest and practical.  It sits on the top of the new directions in research in the ever growing digital arena.”

Janet Salmons has remarkably managed to produce a comprehensive guidance manual for new researchers in today’s digital age, which will also appeal to, and be useful for, experienced researchers. She takes qualitative research thoroughly and imaginatively forward into the totally new world where information technology must feature prominently in our researching. In so doing, she builds upon established traditions and practices, and extends and enhances them to exploit the resources of the present day. She has been aided in this by a publisher who has produced an intensely readable book, in which the creative use of splendidly explanatory diagrams, fonts, colours, boxes, headings, structuring, and signposting makes it generally delightfully easy for the reader to assimilate and navigate.

I found the practical tips extremely helpful, and I see that not only students or new researchers, but also more experienced scholars, could benefit from it. The author offers recommendations that cover all stages of the research process described in the book, which help one to execute a study.

I found the book’s format user-friendly. Each element of the framework has a dedicated chapter and, at the end of each chapter, there is a checklist of questions to consider when putting the element into practice... I have developed my face-to-face interviewing skills through experience and reflection, and I am looking to develop my online interviewing skills in the same way. Salmons offers a constructive and thoughtful way to do so.