INTERVIEWING AND SURVEYING

Interviewing and Surveying

Interviewing and Surveying

Introduction

The rapport between respondents and interviewers plays a large role in the interview process. Interviewers are largely initially responsible for developing and maintaining rapport with respondents (Schuman, 2006). The respondent has to feel comfortable with the survey, and this can be influenced by how key information about what the survey requires is delivered by the interviewer. The respondent must also believe that the survey request is legitimate and the data they provide will be protected (Pelto, 2008).

Interviewers must explain the reason for the survey, set the tone for the interview, convey the importance of the survey, and set up the expectations for how the interview will proceed from the start of the interview (Fowler, 2008). Further, a respondent's decision to participate, as well as his or her attitude about participating (e.g. the seriousness of the survey request) is impacted by his or her feelings about the interviewer and the rapport that has been established (Fowler, 2005).

Discussion

When an interviewer is conducting a semistructured interview, he or she has a list of topics or issues to be covered, but the specific wording of the questions is left to the interviewer (Denzin, 2006). In addition, the interviewer is free to ask about additional topics or issues that were not anticipated in the interview outline. In an unstructured interview, interviewers are free during the interview to decide what topics to ask about, as well as how to word the specific questions (Converse, 2007).

The use of structured interviews is essential if the goal of the interviews is to produce statistical data. The answers to questions cannot be tabulated meaningfully unless all respondents answered the same question.

The Evolution of Structured Interviews

In the early days of survey research, semi-structured interviews were the norm. Interviewers were sent out with a list of topics, but they were free to devise their own questions to find out what people had to say. Three considerations have led to the evolution of survey methods so that structured interviews are almost universally used:

Studies showed that small changes in the wording of questions or in the alternatives offered had discernible effects on the answers people gave.

When interviewers were free to decide on the wording of questions, not surprisingly they differed in the ways in which they worded questions to achieve the same objective. As a result, the answers obtained to surveys were often related to which interviewer did the interviewing.

When respondents were allowed to answer in their own words, it often was difficult to compare what they had to say. For example, if one respondent described her health as “not bad,” while another described her health as “fairly good,” could we reliably say that the first person's health was better, worse, or about the same as that of the second person's? Researchers have found that they can tabulate answers more reliably, and compare the answers of different respondents, if they have respondents choose from the same set of response alternatives (Bernard, ...