Individual Concept Essay

Individual Concept Essay – Subject: Interviews 2

Abstract

What is primary research? Primary research involves collecting data about a given subject directly from the source. Primary research is any type of research that you go out and collect yourself. Examples of primary research include surveys, interviews, observations, and experimental research. The advantages of primary research are that a researcher can focus on both qualitative and quantitative issues and enables the researcher to have a higher control over how the information is collected. Taking this into account, the researcher can decide on such requirements as size of project, time frame and goal. Conversely, the disadvantages of primary research are that it’s very expensive compared to secondary research and requires plenty of time and attention to detail. The time it takes to acquire primary data is much greater than the time to acquire secondary data. The essay will focus on the concept of interviewing, will summarize the concept in detail, will explain how it can be applied and how it is positioned within the marketing research field.

.

Individual Concept Essay – Subject: Interviews 3

During the last one hundred years or so, the most common way to obtain survey data was by inviting individuals to answer questions asked by human interviewers or to answer questions from a questionnaire. Interviews were conducted face-to-face or over the telephone or respondents would fill out questionnaires that were usually distributed via mail. However, we are now in the digital age, and this new wave of technology has greatly impacted business research in particular.

When most people think of interviewing, they envision two people engaged in a face-to-face dialogue or a conversation on the telephone (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin, 2013, p. 206). Due to new technology , especially electronic interactive media, researchers are able to target a large audience and can even personalize individual messages. What’s amazing is that no other humans need to be present. Survey respondents today are not passive audience members. They are actively involved in a two-way communication using electronic interactive media (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin, 2013, p. 206). Interactive communication can happen over the internet and can also include smart phones and tablets. Noninteractive media would include communication that does not allow dialogue or an exchange of information providing immediate feedback. An example would be a traditional questionnaire that is received by mail.

There are many different possible ways to interview respondents and the methods include, personal (face-to-face) interviews, door-to-door interviews, mall intercept interviews, telephone interviews, and computer-assisted telephone interviews. A personal interview is a form of direct communication in which an interviewer asks respondents questions face-to-face. This type of two-way conversation is very versatile and flexible between the interviewer and respondent. The unique advantages of personal interviews are the opportunity for feedback, the opportunity to receive complex answers, the questionnaire will be able to be completed, and greater chance for high participation. Personal interviews are ideal in the sense that they “offer the lowest chance that respondents will misinterpret questions, because an interviewer who senses confusion can clarify the instruction or questions.” (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin, 2013, p. 207). Interviewers can get complex answers from personal interviews which is great

Individual Concept Essay – Subject: Interviews 4

especially when a respondent’s answers are too brief or not clear. The more the interviewer probes for clarification, the more complex, robust, and informative the answers become. These types of answers are welcomed especially for questions that can’t be easily asked in mail surveys or even on the telephone. Another advantage of personal interviews are the completeness of the questionnaire. There will be an occasion where the respondent doesn’t want to finish the questionnaire, but with a well-trained interviewer, the likelihood that the respondent finishes the questionnaire increases. If a respondent were to get bored with a telephone interview or an online email chat interview, the respondent could simply hang up the phone or exit out of the browser, respectively. However, in the case of a personal interview, a respondent will less likely walk away from an interviewer because that’s considered rude. Item nonresponse is less likely to happen during