The qualitative research interview - semi-structured, unstructured, or biographical - is the cornerstone method of social science, anthropology, and health services research. The faithful transcription of the participant's words is a scientific requirement: every hesitation, reformulation and non-standard expression potentially carries analytical meaning that a summarised account cannot preserve.
Transcript fidelity and analytical validity
Listen transcribes with a precision that matches human transcription for standard English speech. The verbatim transcript - including false starts and self-corrections - is directly usable for thematic analysis, discourse analysis, or grounded theory coding. Import the transcript directly into NVivo, ATLAS.ti or MAXQDA for systematic coding. For focus group settings where multiple voices interact, see our article on focus group transcription.
IRB compliance and data governance
In the US, Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocols typically specify how recordings will be stored, who has access, and when they will be destroyed. In the UK, Research Ethics Committees (RECs) impose comparable requirements. Listen's architecture - iCloud-only storage, no third-party access - facilitates compliance with these protocols. Data destruction is under the researcher's direct control.
For biographical or sensitive interviews, use the Re-transcribe function if the initial pass contains gaps - the original audio is retained in iCloud for reprocessing at any time.
Explore our plans for research teams and universities.