Interviewing teachers by telephone

The telephone is being used increasingly as a research tool in education and this paper presents a description of a large-scale telephone survey of ICT Co-ordinators in schools across England. It starts with a summary of the background literature on telephone survey methodology in order to show why the telephone interview was chosen as the preferred data collection method. The research involved attempting to contact teachers in nearly 1000 primary and secondary schools to ask for their views on internet safety. The results were rewarding, frustrating and occasionally entertaining. The researchers' successes and the drawbacks found in collecting data from school teachers by telephone interviews are described and recommendations presented for future telephone surveys.