Serial Interviews: When and Why to Talk to Someone More Than Once

Many qualitative social scientists conduct single-session interviews with large numbers of individuals so as to maximize the sample size and obtain a wide range of study participants. Yet in some circumstances, one-shot interviews cannot produce information of adequate quality, quantity, and validity. This article explains the several conditions that call for an alternative approach, serial interviewing, that entails interviewing participants on multiple occasions. This method is appropriate when studying complex or ill-defined issues, when interviews are subject to time constraints, when exploring change or variation over time, when participants are reluctant to share valid information, and when working with critical informants. A further benefit is the opportunity it provides for verifying and cross-checking information. This article delineates the general features of this technique. Through a series of encounters, the researcher builds familiarity and trust, probes a range of key topics from multiple angles, explores different facets of participants’ experiences, and learns from events that happen to take place during the interviews. This helps overcome biases associated with one-off interviews, including a tendency toward safe, simple answers in which participants flatten complexity, downplay sociopolitical conflict, and put themselves in a flattering light. This article illustrates the utility of this approach through examples drawn from published work and through a running illustration based on the author’s research on elected neighborhood leaders in Taipei. Serial interviewing helped produce relatively accurate and nuanced data concerning the power these leaders wield and their multiple roles as intermediaries between state and society.