Structured Survey Interviewing: Telephone and In-Person Surveys

Behice Ece IlhanChihchien Chen

Outlines Interviewer factor Interviewing techniques Theories and methods of telephone

surveys Does Conversational Interviewing Reduce

Survey Measurement Error? Future research directions

Interviewer Factor Who is an interviewer?

Role expectationsAttitude structure expectationsProbability expectations

Interviewer vs. researcherInterviewer as gatekeeperInteractive nature of interviews ( Cannell et al 1981)

Why is interviewer a factor in survey research?

Response ratesThe accuracy of reportingConsistency or precision of measurementInterviewer expectations

Role of interviewer

To locate and enlist cooperation of selected respondents To train and motivate respondents To ask questions, record answers, and probe incomplete answers

Why are these skills particularly important for telephone surveys?

Interviewer Factor

Standardization: to control for the interviewer factor What is standardized interviews?

Standardize what?

Tailoring vs. standardizationWhich one? When?

Implementation modeSocially desirable questions/ knowledge questionsInterviewer profile

Five aspects of interviewer behavior that the researcher tries to standardize

Presenting the studyAsking questionsProbingRecording the answersInterpersonal relations

Interviewer Factor

Interviewer Related Error When do we have interviewer related

error?

Interviewer related error vs. interviewer bias

How does each affect the quality of data?

Interviewer performance

Training How do we rate interviewer performance?

(telephone vs. face-to-face vs. mail surveys) Why is it important?

In Class Activity:

As a researcher, pretend that you want to hire an interviewer to

conduct your research. Explain him/her or the group about the

expected roles and performances from the interviewers. Mention

about standardization, probing, performance measures, tailoring etc.

Selecting Interviewers The criteria to select

In Class Activity:

According to the literature, which of these criteria are

independent of the type of the study? In other words, which of

them don’t cause interaction between subject matter and the

demographic characteristics of the respondents and the

interviewers?

AgeEducationPart time / Full time

ExperienceRaceReligionEthnicity

In Class Activity: Role PlayingPresenting a study:

Pretend that you are an interviewer. By the researcher, you are

assigned to call people about a study about counterfeiting products

survey. How will you present the study? Let’s write a script

together.

The Study seeks to identify differences in consumers’ attitudes toward

counterfeited products in fashion, medicine, food etc. (across race,

gender, education, and age)

Possible informants are elderly, professionals, young people,

housewives etc. Try to tailor the presentation for different profiles of

informants.

What type of informant do you think will be more challenging?

Support your answers with data from literature. (e.g. difficult to

engage old people)

Presenting the StudyIn class activity:

Interviewing Techniques Historical perspectives Current perspectives

Question answering process – (diagram in cognitive processes)

Cognitive and motivational difficulties in answering questions

demands placed on informants Deviation from process due to some situational cues (or sometimes due to personal traits) such as social desirability bias, acquiescence bias,etc.

Response Errors Underreporting /Overreporting: due to elapsed time,

salience of events, perceptions of social desirability (e.g. hospitalization)

Standard Interviewing Techniques:

Interviewing Techniques Improving interviewing techniques

Question length What are some findings about question length? How do you interpret these findings?

Response Modeling Introduction Reinforcement and Feedback Commitment Pace Rapport

Experiments with the new techniques of commitment, instructions, and feecdback

Theories & Methods of Telephone Surveys (Groves, 1990)What is the goal of survey theory?

What are the factors affecting the quality of response?

Three kinds of sampling frames: Telephone directories Computerized files based on directories Area code-prefix frames

Theories & Methods of Telephone Surveys (Groves, 1990)How can social exchange theory be adapted

to explain nonresponse error?How can communication theory be adapted

to explain nonresponse error? Why do people accept or reject a survey

request?What are the factors affecting the

nonresponse rate?

Theories & Methods of Telephone Surveys (Groves, 1990)

How is communication theory adapted to explain measurement error?

Methods of decreasing the measurement error:

Does Conversational Interviewing Reduce Survey Measurement Error? (Schober & Conrad, 1997)

Do we need a standardized procedure? What are the pros and cons of a standardized survey?

Does Conversational Interviewing Reduce Survey Measurement Error? (Schober & Conrad, 1997)

Alternatives for implementing flexible interviewing: Type of interaction (un)scripted definition

Why or why not use flexible interviewing? Does a flexible interviewing initiate other effects?

When to adopt a flexible interviewing? It is not a panacea.

Does Conversational Interviewing Reduce Survey Measurement Error? (Schober & Conrad, 1997)

If we want to measure social desirable questions, telescoping errors, closed-ended questions, and threatening and knowledge questions, can the flexible interviewing itself change respondents’ answers? If so, how can that happen?

Theories & Methods of Telephone Surveys (Groves, 1990)

CATI (computer-Assisted telephone interviewing)

BrainstormingSince nowadays many people only have cell

phones as their primary phone contact, how does the fewer number of viable landlines affect the traditional telephone survey? What are the reasons causing survey errors in the situation? How would survey errors appear, and how can we reduce the survey errors? Would that change things?

Theories & Methods of Telephone Surveys (Groves, 1990) How does social exchange theory be

adopted to explain nonresponse error?

How does communication theory be adopted to explain nonresponse error?

Why do people accept or reject a survey request?

What to take home?1.2.3.4.5. Prof. Shavitt:

[This is an interactive class activity, which aims to summarize 5 important points of what we have learned in the session.]