Conferences

There are many challenges to data collection in survey interviews. In contacting respondents and gaining cooperation we have the challenge of (unit) non response; how can respondents best be approached to convince them to cooperate? In asking questions, keeping respondents motivated, and recording all data correctly and completely we have the challenge of problematic questionnaires and interviewer variance. One of the ways in which these topics can be studied is focusing on the behavior of interviewers and respondents; to what extent do they follow the rules of the game, and when they don’t, what can this tell us about the quality of data collection?

Interviewer and respondent behavior can be studied by means of direct observation in the contacting phase and during the interview, or afterwards by means of audio-recordings or transcripts of the interview. Observation can comprise systematic observation (behavior coding, through which frequencies or sequential structures of the interaction can be analyzed quantitatively) or more qualitative analysis (e.g, conversation analysis).

In a more indirect way, unit non-response or questionnaire evaluation can be studied by means of debriefing interviewers (asking them about successful and unsuccessful contact approaches, questions that do or do not work), debriefing respondents or conducting cognitive interviews (in which difficulties with the questionnaire can be explored).

An even more indirect approach would be to analyze response patterns (e.g., getting estimates of interviewer variance), from which problematic behavior of interviewers and respondents may be inferred.

The session on interviewer and respondent behavior welcomes any paper using direct or indirect approaches of studying interviewer and respondent behavior. With the session we aim to discuss, compare and contrast the methods used to evaluate interviewer and respondent behavior.