Do Interviewers with High Cooperation Rates Behave Differently? Interviewer Cooperation Rates and Interview Behaviors

• Activity Number: 63
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 9, 2015 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Kristen Olson* and Jolene D. Smyth and Antje D. Kirchner
• Companies: University of Nebraska - Lincoln and University of Nebraska - Lincoln and University of Nebraska - Lincoln
• Keywords: interviewers ; total survey error ; interviewer-respondent interaction

Abstract

Interviewer skills for obtaining cooperation from sampled households require flexibility, tailoring to the respondent, and maintaining interaction. On the other hand, administration of survey questionnaires requires reading questions exactly as written, nondirective probes, and a clear set of regimented behaviors during the interview. That is, interviewers are required to be flexible during recruitment, but standardized during measurement. These skill sets may be at odds. This paper will examine behavioral differences in the survey interview between interviewers who are more successful at gaining cooperation and those who are less successful. We examine whether question misreadings, probing, feedback, disfluencies, and clarifications differ for interviewers with higher versus lower cooperation rates. We use the Work and Leisure Today Survey (n=450, AAPOR RR1=4.7%), including survey data, paradata, and behavior codes. Preliminary analyses indicate that interviewers with higher cooperation rates deviate more from the question wording, introducing (major) changes to the question stem or response options more often than interviewers with lower cooperation rates.