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Research behind a webcam: an exploration of virtual interviewing with children and young people
Elizabeth Bichard1, Stephen McKeever2, Jo Wray3
1Institute of Health and Social Care, London South Bank University, London, England.
Background:
Societal use of digital technology rapidly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Face-to-face services converted to online provision where possible. This affected many nurse researchers.
Aim:
To explore conducting research interviews online with children and young people (CYP) about sensitive topics.
Discussion:
This article considers digital inclusion, as well as ethical issues surrounding safety, support and consent, along with choosing tools for collecting data. It also presents a discussion of physical proximity in qualitative interviews with this population and its role in data quality. The authors investigate benefits in the context of researchers' personal experiences. They acknowledge the disadvantages of conducting interviews online and discuss ways to mitigate these.
Conclusion:
The advantages for researchers include cost-effectiveness, time-efficiency and greater geographical reach of participants. However, CYP's perspectives are unknown and the specific ethical issues of using this method with CYP need careful consideration.
Implications For Practice:
More research is needed to examine virtual interviews from the perspectives of CYP as participants. Virtual acquisition of consent and assent should be investigated to standardise good research practices.
