Interviewing

In the social sciences, a major method of data gathering is interviewing individuals. Interviews may be formally conducted in social SURVEYS, face-to-face or over the telephone. Or, subjects in a study population, such as members of an indigenous language community in the Andes, can be more or less informally interviewed. At the elite level, interviews may be carried out essentially as conversations, at least ostensibly. The interview method may have to be adapted to the social context in order to achieve the overriding goal of obtaining valid and useful DATA.