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unanticipated data’ (Braun et al., 2013, p. 81). Almost always the participant took this opportunity to talk generally in a disarming manner, about the participant’s experiences and opinions. Clarke and Braun (2013) state that this strategy helps to avoid the participant not providing or forgetting valuable rich information in the ‘afterglow’ of an interview, once it has ceased. The interviews concluded when it felt ‘natural that the interview had come to an end’. Follow-up letters or telephone calls were made shortly thereafter to participants to convey acknowledgement of the researcher’s gratitude. 5.8 Face-to-Face Interviews in Comparison to Telephone Interviews An apparent assumption is that face-to-face interviews are superior to telephone interviews. Some criticisms of telephone interviewing are that there a loss of visual cues (Garbett & McCormack, 2001; Rubin & Rubin, 1995) and potential participant distractions through environmental activities (McCoyd & Kerson, 2006; Opdenakker, 2006). While acknowledging that there are no visual cues, qualitative telephone data has nevertheless been assessed to be ‘rich, vivid, detailed, and of high quality’ (Novick, 2008, p. 393; Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004). While Novick (2008) reports that face-to face interviews appear from the literature to be the ‘‘gold standard’’ (McCoyd & Kerson, 2006, p. 389) for qualitative research, a counter argument is that participants may feel more relaxed and able to disclose sensitive information when the interviewer is physically absent (Chapple, 1999; Kavanaugh & Ayres, 1998; Opdenakker, 2006), particularly if strategies are utilised to foster a sense of connectedness and to put participants at ease (Burnard, 1994). This was upper mind in the researcher’s thinking and hence he invested time to chat informally before the interview commenced to build trust or, as Clarke and Braun (2013) state, not to ‘immediately jump