Special Issue of mda: Video Interviewing for Collecting Survey Data

Guest Editors:

Frederick G. Conrad (University of Michigan, fconrad@umich.edu), Andrew L. Hupp (University of Michigan, ahupp@umich.edu), Tim Hanson (City, University of London, tim.hanson@city.ac.uk) and Gabriele Durrant (University of Southampton, G.Durrant@soton.ac.uk)

Video communication, both synchronous and asynchronous, is now part of daily life for many people. Its adoption was almost surely accelerated by the pandemic-related challenges of in-person communication, although the necessary technology and infrastructure was in place prior to 2020. Recently, video communication has been explored as a survey data collection mode for studies requiring face-to-face, although not necessarily in-person, interviewing. 

We invite authors to submit an article reporting research about video interviewing used to collect survey data to a special issue of methods, data, and analyses. Submissions should focus on the method more than the substance of the research. Because video survey interviewing is new, experimental studies of the method are rare, so far. Therefore, in addition to serving as a platform for experimental mode comparisons, the Special Issue is open to reports about video interviewing in production surveys and other practical experiences with video in survey data collection. Manuscripts should concern the collection of responses to structured survey questionnaires – focus groups, job interviews, and telemedicine are beyond the scope of the special issue – but “video interviewing” is broadly defined, e.g., can include live, two way interaction between interviewers and respondents as well as recorded interviewers asking survey questions which respondents answer by speaking, entering text, or selecting on-screen options. 

Possible topics include but are not limited to: 

• Participation and Recruitment
• Sampling Frames and Coverage
• Data Quality and Total Survey Error 
• Interviewing Platforms, Choice (comparison) or Development 
• Administering interview tasks that rely on the presentation of graphical material in live, two-way interviews, e.g. cognitive assessment
• Hybrid Video Modes, e.g., in which respondents can self-administer sensitive questions
• Video Mediated Interaction between interviewer and respondent
• Pre-recorded or Animated Interviewers

Submission procedure: Authors are invited to submit a proposal (extended abstract) of 500-1000 words (prospective authors are free to email the guest editors to ask questions about their proposed papers including whether a topic is within scope for the special issue). Please register as an author on the mda homepage (https://mda.gesis.org/index.php/mda)  and submit abstracts in the "Abstracts for Special Issue on Video Interviewing for Collecting Survey Data" section. 

A subset of authors will be invited to submit a full manuscript which will be peer reviewed.

For the full paper, authors should follow the mda Author Guidelines (https://mda.gesis.org/index.php/mda/about/submissions#authorGuidelines). Accepted papers will be published Online First. The Special Issue will appear in spring, 2025.

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