Interviewer Attitudes Toward Respondent Persuasion: The Impact on Production
Laura Machingo
RTI International
Barbara Forsyth
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Gretchen McHenry
RTI International
Grace Medley
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Breda Munoz
RTI International
Stephanie Parker
RTI International
Stephanie Terrey
RTI International
Cristina Touarti
RTI International
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) conducted a series of four short surveys with active interviewers in early 2016 to better understand interviewer attitudes in the field and the impact those attitudes may have on respondent cooperation. NSDUH interviewers were asked about overall job satisfaction, supervisor management and project expectations, respondent persuasion, and communication and support. Previous literature shows that interviewer attitudes and characteristics impact survey cooperation in a variety of ways (Durrant et al., 2010). One study conducted by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) examined the role of interviewers' experience, attitudes, personality traits, and interpersonal skills in determining survey cooperation. In their research, NatCen found that interviewers who "are more positive about the justification, feasibility and usefulness of persuading reluctant respondents" are able to persuade respondents at higher rates (Sinibaldi et al., 2009). This paper describes analysis of the findings from the NSDUH Persuading Respondents survey and includes comparisons to the findings from the NatCen survey. Specifically, we examined intervie