Question

Do you think that questionnaires or interviews provide more data?

Answer 1

As with any research, data collection is very important. and there are various methods used by researchers to collect it.Though researchers usually prefer questionnaires because they are cost-effective, time-efficient and easy to evaluate objectively, questionnaires do have some disadvantages. Questionnaires lack in providing personal and additional information about the subjects.

whereas interviews provide more data over questionnaires and most of them are accurate. for example interviews help with more accurate screening. The individual being interviewed is unable to provide false information during screening questions such as gender, age, or race.

Interviews can be more useful than questionnaires because they allow researchers to collect non-verbal data. For example, researchers can see whether particular questions make an interview subject nervous or whether the test subject struggles to answer the question. This type of information could not be collected from a written questionnaire.

when a live interview is conducted, the test subject can ask for clarification if he/she does not understand a question. Likewise, the interviewer can ask follow-up questions to evoke a more thorough response.

Interviews are more flexible than questionnaires and are a good fit for studies where the research question is not well defined.

Face-to-face interviews can no doubt capture an interviewee’s emotions and behaviors.In short, nonverbal cues such as lack of eye contact, jittery mannerisms or defensive posturing can provide context to an interviewee's answers.

As such, interviews are a stronger tool than questionnaires for researchers who want to explore topics in a general way.