How Well Do Interviewers Record Responses to Numeric, Interviewer Field-code, and Open-ended Narrative Questions in Telephone Surveys?

Telephone survey interviewers need to be able to accurately record answers to questions. While straightforward for closed questions, this task can be complicated for open questions. We examine interviewer recording accuracy rates from a national landline random digit dial telephone survey. We find that accuracy rates are over 90% for numeric response and interviewer-code, single-response items but are astonishingly low (49%) for a multiple-answer, nominal, interviewer-code item. Accuracy rates for narrative open questions were around 90% for themes but only about 70% for themes and elaborations. Interviewer behaviors (e.g., probing, feedback) are generally associated with lower accuracy rates. Implications for questionnaire design, interviewer training, and coding procedures are discussed.

Item Location, the Interviewer–Respondent Interaction, and Responses to Battery Questions in Telephone Surveys

Survey researchers often ask a series of attitudinal questions with a common question stem and response options, known as battery questions. Interviewers have substantial latitude in deciding how to administer these items, including whether to reread the common question stem on items after the first one or to probe respondents’ answers. Despite the ubiquity of use of these items, there is virtually no research on whether respondent and interviewer behaviors on battery questions differ over items in a battery or whether interview behaviors are associated with answers to these questions. This article uses a nationally representative telephone survey with audio-recorded interviews and randomized placement of items within four different batteries to examine interviewer and respondent behaviors and respondent answers in battery questions. Using cross-classified random-effects models, the authors find strong evidence that there is more interviewer–respondent interaction on items asked earlier in the battery. In addition, interviewer and respondent behaviors are associated with both substantive and nonsubstantive answers provided to battery items, especially if the interviewer decided to reread or probe with the response options. These results suggest that survey designers should follow recommendations to randomize battery items and consider the importance of standardization of question administration when designing battery questions.

Interviewer-driven Variability in Social Network Reporting

Social network analysis depends on how social ties to others are elicited during interviews, a process easily affected by respondent and interviewer behaviors. We investigate how the number of self-reported important social contacts varied within a single data collection round. Our data come from Health and Aging in Africa: a Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH community (HAALSI), a comprehensive population-based survey of individuals aged 40 years and older conducted over 13 months at the Agincourt health and demographic surveillance site in rural South Africa. As part of HAALSI, interviewers elicited detailed egocentric network data. The average number of contacts reported by the 5,059 respondents both varied significantly across interviewers and fell over time as the data collection progressed, even after adjusting for respondent, interviewer, and respondent–interviewer dyad characteristics. Contact numbers rose substantially after a targeted interviewer intervention. We conclude that checking (and adjusting) for interviewer effects, even within one data collection round, is critical to valid and reliable social network analysis.