Interviewer's Nationality and Outcome of the Survey
This experiment was conducted to determine whether interviewers of different nationalities would elicit significantly different responses to questionnaire and interview items on a nationality-related topic. Four Vietnamese female graduate students interviewed 79 female freshmen on the topic of the Vietnamese War. Each interviewer served representing three nationalities: South Vietnamese, Thai, and Japanese. The results indicated that the most pro-Vietnamese War answers were given to interviewers representing Japanese nationality. Results were significant ( p < .05) for the questionnaires but not for the interviews, although the trends were similar for both. The study suggests that interviewer's nationality can influence the outcome of a survey and that the direction of the influence is nor readily predictable.