Question

A colleague is planning to conduct a survey among a sample of university students on a sensitive health topic. He is considering the following methods of data collection:

• Face-to-face interviews
• A self-completion survey using a smartphone app.

1. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each of these methods for this survey.

Answer 1

Advantages and disadvantages of face to face interview

Advantages of face to face interview of sensitive health topic are mentioned. Accurate screening is possible with such interview where interviewers are unable to misleading information about health topic. Another big advantage is obtained non-verbal ques. These non-verbal gestures help interview to determine truthful of information provided by respondents. Interviewer can know hidden feelings of respondents by reading non-verbal behavior. Face to face interview does not cause distractions and immediately receives feedback from respondents. Face to face interview thus provides better control on the process of interview. But the disadvantages are high cost, and poor outcomes of interview if the interviewer has not sufficient skills to conduct interview. Interview can be suffered from interviewers’ subjective bias. Manual data entry is another drawback of face to face interview. The next drawback of interview is a limited sample size that causes lack of generalization of findings.

Advantage and disadvantages of self-completion survey by a Smartphone app

Conducting health topic interview with self-completion survey provides these benefits. The cost is the main advantage as cost is significantly reduced to conduct such survey. Another advantage is offering respondents control over survey process as such survey process is confidential in nature that may prompt more individuals to partake. Sensitive health topic information may not be obtained by face to face interview but respondents can be better able to divulge information by self administered survey. Self administer survey with smart mobile app avoids bias as well as subjective bias problem of interviewer is not present in self administered survey.

But the disadvantages can be getting irrelevant feedback and not representing the desired population required for studying a sensitive health topic. Feedbacks received from respondents may not be feasible with use of self administered survey. Response rate of respondent can also be low as many respondents may not give elaborative answers. These drawbacks limit the potential of self-completion survey using Smartphone app