The Relationship Between Interviewer Characteristics, Interviewer Certification Scores, and Interview Quality (303589)

Keywords: Data quality, paradata, interviewer characteristics

One important aspect of improving data quality in surveys is understanding how the characteristics of interviewers may impact data quality. There are several characteristics of interviewers that are correlated with data quality such as experience and education. This paper uses an additional characteristic of interviewers, their training certification score for the 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation, a nationally representative longitudinal survey. We use logistic and OLS regressions to examine the relationship between interviewer characteristics and certification scores in relation to quality indicators including: time spent on interview, consent to record interview, use of help file, rounding of asset values, and interview completion.