BH Ch. 9

Role of interviewer

-Prepare for the interview -Locate and enlist the cooperation of respondents -Motivate respondents -Clarify any confusion or concerns -Observe quality of response

group-administered questionnaire

A sample of respondents is brought together at a common place and time, and each respondent is asked to complete the survey questionnaire while in that room. Respondents enter their responses independently without interacting with each other. This format is convenient for the researcher, and high response rate is assured.f respondents do not understand any specific question, they can ask for clarification

Exhaustive responses

If it has options and the options cover all the possibilities

Non-response bias

In this instance, not only will the results lack generalizability, but the observed outcomes may also be an artifact of the biased sample

focus group

In this technique, a small group of respondents (usually 6-10 respondents) are interviewed together in a common location. The interviewer is essentially a facilitator whose job is to lead the discussion, and ensure that every person has an opportunity to respond. Focus groups allow deeper examination of complex issues than other forms of survey research, because when people hear others talk, it often triggers responses or ideas that they did not think about before

telephone interviews

In this technique, interviewers contact potential respondents over the phone, typically based on a random selection of people from a telephone directory, to ask a standard set of survey questions or also can respond by digit dialing.

Social desirability bias

Many respondents tend to avoid negative opinions or embarrassing comments about themselves, their employers, family, or friends. With negative questions such as do you think that your project team is dysfunctional, is there a lot of office politics in your workplace, or have you ever illegally downloaded music files from the Internet, the researcher may not get truthful responses

mutually exclusive responses

Only choose one response can be chosen

Question content and wording

Responses obtained in survey research are very sensitive to the types of questions asked. Poorly framed or ambiguous questions will likely result in meaningless responses with very little value -Is the question clear and understandable? -Is the question worded in a negative manner? -Is the question ambiguous? - Does the question have biased or value-laden words? -Is the question double-barreled? -Is the question too general? -Is the question too detailed? -Is the question presumptuous? -Is the question imaginary? -Do respondents have the information needed to correctly answer the question?

Sampling bias

Such biases make the respondent sample unrepresentative of the intended population and hurt generalizability claims about inferences drawn from the biased sample.

questionnaire

a research instrument consisting of a set of questions (items) intended to capture responses from respondents in a standardized manner. Questions may be unstructured or structured. Unstructured questions ask respondents to provide a response in their own words, while structured questions ask respondents to select an answer from a given set of choices

Survey research

a research method involving the use of standardized questionnaires or interviews to collect data about people and their preferences, thoughts, and behaviors in a systematic manner

Question sequencing

general, questions should flow logically from one to the next. To achieve the best response rates, questions should flow from the least sensitive to the most sensitive, from the factual and behavioral to the attitudinal, and from the more general to the more specific. Some general rules for question sequencing: Start with easy non-threatening questions that can be easily recalled. Good options are demographics (age, gender, education level) for individual-level surveys and firmographics (employee count, annual revenues, industry) for firm-level surveys. Never start with an open ended question. If following an historical sequence of events, follow a chronological order from earliest to latest. Ask about one topic at a time. When switching topics, use a transition, such as "The next section examines your opinions about ..." Use filter or contingency questions as needed, such as: "If you answered "yes" to question 5, please proceed to Section 2. If you answered "no" go to Section 3."

Recall bias

often depend on subjects' motivation, memory, and ability to respond. Particularly when dealing with events that happened in the distant past, respondents may not adequately remember their own motivations or behaviors or perhaps their memory of such events may have evolved with time and no longer retrievable.

Common method bias

refers to the amount of spurious covariance shared between independent and dependent variables that are measured at the same point in time, such as in a cross-sectional survey, using the same instrument, such as a questionnaire

Dichotomous response

where respondents are asked to select one of two possible choices, such as true/false, yes/no, or agree/disagree. An example of such a question is: Do you think that the death penalty is justified under some circumstances (circle one): yes / no.

Interval-level response,

where respondents are presented with a 5-point or 7-point Likert scale, semantic differential scale, or Guttman scale. Each of these scale types were discussed in a previous chapter.

Nominal response

where respondents are presented with more than two unordered options, such as: What is your industry of employment: manufacturing / consumer services / retail / education / healthcare / tourism & hospitality / other

Continuous response

where respondents enter a continuous (ratio-scaled) value with a meaningful zero point, such as their age or tenure in a firm. These responses generally tend to be of the fill-in-the blanks type.

Ordinal response

where respondents have more than two ordered options, such as: what is your highest level of education: high school / college degree / graduate studies.

face-to-face interview

where the interviewer works directly with the respondent to ask questions and record their responses. Personal interviews may be conducted at the respondent's home or office location

self-administered mail surveys

where the same questionnaire is mailed to a large number of people, and willing respondents can complete the survey at their convenience and return it in postage-prepaid envelopes. Mail surveys are advantageous in that they are unobtrusive, and they are inexpensive to administer, since bulk postage is cheap in most countries. However, response rates from mail surveys tend to be quite low since most people tend to ignore survey requests. There may also be long delays (several months) in respondents' completing and returning the survey (or they may simply lose it)

Conducting the interview

Before the interview, the interviewer should prepare a kit to carry to the interview session, consisting of a cover letter from the principal investigator or sponsor, adequate copies of the survey instrument, photo identification, and a telephone number for respondents to call to verify the interviewer's authenticity. The interviewer should also try to call respondents ahead of time to set up an appointment if possible. To start the interview, he/she should speak in an imperative and confident tone, such as "I'd like to take a few minutes of your time to interview you for a very important study," instead of "May I come in to do an interview?" He/she should introduce himself/herself, present personal credentials, explain the purpose of the study in 1-2 sentences, and assure confidentiality of respondents' comments and voluntariness of their participation, all in less than a minute. No big words or jargon should be used, and no details should be provided unless specifically requested. If the interviewer wishes to tape-record the interview, he/she should ask for respondent's explicit permission before doing so. Even if the interview is recorded, the interview must take notes on key issues, probes, or verbatim phrases.

Response formats

Dichotomous response, Nominal response, Ordinal response, Continuous response, Interval-level response,

Other golden rules

Do unto your respondents what you would have them do unto you. Be attentive and appreciative of respondents' time, attention, trust, and confidentiality of personal information. Always practice the following strategies for all survey research: People's time is valuable. Be respectful of their time. Keep your survey as short as possible and limit it to what is absolutely necessary. Respondents do not like spending more than 10-15 minutes on any survey, no matter how important it is. Longer surveys tend to dramatically lower response rates. Always assure respondents about the confidentiality of their responses, and how you will use their data (e.g., for academic research) and how the results will be reported (usually, in the aggregate). For organizational surveys, assure respondents that you will send them a copy of the final results, and make sure that you follow up with your promise. Thank your respondents for their participation in your study. Finally, always pretest your questionnaire, at least using a convenience sample, before administering it to respondents in a field setting. Such pretesting may uncover ambiguity, lack of clarity, or biases in question wording, which should be eliminated before administering to the intended sample.

Some useful probing techniques are

The silent probe: Just pausing and waiting (without going into the next question) may suggest to respondents that the interviewer is waiting for more detailed response. Overt encouragement: Occasional "uh-huh" or "okay" may encourage the respondent to go into greater details. However, the interviewer must not express approval or disapproval of what was said by the respondent. Ask for elaboration: Such as "can you elaborate on that?" or "A minute ago, you were talking about an experience you had in high school. Can you tell me more about that?" Reflection: The interviewer can try the psychotherapist's trick of repeating what the respondent said. For instance, "What I'm hearing is that you found that experience very traumatic" and then pause and wait for the respondent to elaborate.