Experiences of video interviewing in two UK national cohort studies
Speaker(s):
Bio: Carole Sanchez is a Survey Manager at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) and is responsible for the project management of two of their national longitudinal cohort studies -The 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). These world renowned studies have followed the lives of individuals since they were born, providing unique evidence on how people develop from infancy, throughout childhood and adult life.
Samantha Spencer
Abstract:
Using video interviewing to conduct social surveys is relatively new but interest in this mode accelerated considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic this mode of interviewing was used on two large scale longitudinal studies, the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). Both studies had planned large face to face surveys which were not possible to conduct during this time. Video interviewing enabled fieldwork to take place until face to face interviews were again feasible.
We will discuss some of the key challenges arising including how to implement the video interview, training requirements and protocol adaptions, including the collection of highly sensitive information via video. We will present findings on response rates achieved, initial findings on the impact of video interviewing on data quality and will consider the future potential of video interviewing as a mode of data collection for population surveys.