I 160 c. Interviews Interviews are the most common and v. ridely used method of data collection. It involves asl-.-ing and answering questions follo-..ving a systematic procedure aimed at yielding first band information from the subject of inquiry. Interviews are categorized based on presence of face-to-face interaction number of interview participants at a given time and interview structure' (Tan and Dalisay, 1999) · Based on the presence of face-to-face interaction, interviews may be conducte d in person or via telephone inte1. views. Face-to-face interview allows the person being in. terviewed to seek clarifications about the questions. At the same time, the interviewer can pick up non-verbal cues from the respondent to indicate congruence with his/her verbal response. Telephone interview has more limitations than face-to-face interview to be considered of use in gathering voluminous data. For one, telephone calls are rather expensive when one calls from a mobile phone. Definitely te. xt:messages can only provide limited data. Finally, people respond bettc; when they keep an eye contact with the person they talk to making the interview more fruitful and constructive. ' Interviews can be individual or group interviews. Individual interview takes place between a respondent and an interviewer and is most useful when sensitive issues are being discussed. When a pei-son known to be an expert or an authority on a. specific subject is interviewed, this is known as the Key Informant lntervic'W (Kil). For in~tance, if we want lo know the program for integrated development of a municipality, the best person to interview would be the local chief executive or the tuunicipal development officer. But if one wants to find out the efforts to address . health issues at tbe barangaiy level, the barangay captain or the kagawad (councilor) for health,-vill be the appropriate persons to shed light on the matter. Group interview consists of one interviewer and several participants, usually around 10 to is which a Uow the interviewer to gather data from a good number of people at the same time. It takes a very experienced interviewer to be able to facilitate a good group interview and turn up with a high quality data. A skilled interviewer must eosuc-e equal par6cipation from the respondents and to be able to prevent antagonism when tl1ere are conflicts of ideas. Interviews may be structured 01-unstruc tured. S-tructu~·ed interview -follm,vs a list of questions ca Ued an interview schedule which becomes the "script" in the conduct of the interview. A set of possible responses are indicated in the interview schedule from which the participant s will choose from. The interviewe, is expected to adhere to the interview schedule, and is not allowed to alter tl1e sequence of the questions, reword or rephrase the questions. The set of responses should consider all possible answers that the participants may articulate. Unstructured interview is useful in collecting qualitative data that seek to desctibe opinions or perceptions of people focusing on a particular issue, problem or phenomenon. lt makes use of open-ended questions and more often, takes off from the responses elicited from the person being interviewe d. In order for the interview to be 