Back to Likert : towards a conversational survey

Mixed methods constitute one of the most important contemporary trends in social and applied research. However, combining qualitative and quantitative inquiry through the separate use of different methodologies within the same research project appears to be costly and time-consuming. The “conversational survey” may be a useful technique with which to reduce such costs, given that many of the advantages of mixed methods are obtained using a single method. In other words, the conversational survey technique combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches in a single instrument, doing so in the wake of other techniques like the ‘delphi’ or the ‘mystery shopper’ methods, which also rely on this mixed approach. The paper aims to describe the origins, the procedure and the advantages of the conversational survey in light of an example drawn from research.