Email as a Data Collection Tool when Interviewing Older Adults
Résumé
This article explores several aspects of electronic communication, specifically its advantages and disadvantages within the context of a brief experience using email to interview elders. Two older adults participated via email as the psychosocial impact of aging was collected using such venue. Our experiences are compared with published reports from others to analyze the benefits and limitations of email as a research tool. The email was spontaneous, comprehensive, interactive, efficient, confidential, and cost effective. The use of email within this exploratory study appeared to be an effective approach to collecting qualitative information about beliefs and behaviours from older adults who feel comfortable with this form of communication. The lack of similar studies limited the scope of discussion and comparison of findings; generalization is limited due to the small sample size. This investigation, however, suggested that the use of email as an interview tool may be considered in today’s exploratory research arena as an alternative to conference calls or face-to-face interviews when time is a constraint.Téléchargements
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2011-08-26
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The Creative Commons‐Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License 4.0 International applies to all works published by the International Journal of Qualitative Methods. Copyright for articles published in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods remains with the first author.It is the responsibility of the author, not the IJQM, to obtain permission to use any previously published and/or copyrighted material.