There is abundant literature about interviewer effects on the survey process, but studies of interviewer training are quite limited. Previous research has produced mixed findings on how training affects interviewer performance. Trainings are often conducted in person despite the mixed findings. There has been no research that examines the use of…

For hard-to-survey populations such as ethnic minorities and immigrants, increasing survey response rates is a crucial element of the fieldwork as these populations often show a higher likelihood of not participating compared with the native population. However, no study has so far compared different strategies for mobilisation within this group.…

When and how to survey potential respondents is often determined by budgetary and external constraints, but choice of survey modality may have enormous implications for data quality. Different survey modalities may be differentially susceptible to measurement error attributable to interviewer assignment, known as interviewer effects. In this…

Although it has long been acknowledged that interviewers play a crucial role in the survey data collection process, there is little research concerning interviewer effects on how respondents perceive the interview. We investigate whether interviewer effects exist regarding how much respondents report having enjoyed the interview and whether these…

We examine relationships between interviewers' nonverbal behaviors and adequate responding in face-to-face survey interviews. We videotaped professional interviewers administering face-to-face survey interviews and coded them for three interviewer nonverbal behaviors: smiling, nodding, and direct gaze. These nonverbal interviewer behaviors were…

Recent debates about qualitative methods have discussed the relative limitations and contributions of interviews in comparison to surveys and participant observation. These discussions have rarely considered how ethnographers themselves use interviews as part of their work. We suggest that Lizardo's discussion of three modes of culture…

Survey interviewers can negatively affect survey data by introducing variance and bias into estimates. When investigating these interviewer effects, research typically focuses on interviewer sociodemographics with only a few studies examining the effects of characteristics that are not directly visible such as interviewer attitudes, opinions, and…

Background: Although students with disabilities are enrolling in higher education in larger numbers than ever before, they are still underrepresented in colleges and universities, particularly among four-year institutions. College choice has been explored across multiple facets, but limited research has examined the college choice processes of…

Not knowing the population size is a common problem in data-limited contexts. Drawing on work in Sierra Leone, this short take outlines a four-step solution to this problem: (1) estimate the population size using expert interviews; (2) verify estimates using interviews with participants sampled; (3) triangulate using secondary data; and (4)…

A growing number of people live in apartments worldwide, and research into these contexts is key to the success of our cities. Recruiting apartment residents as research participants can be challenging, however, especially when using a case study approach. This research note outlines the participant recruitment method developed for case study…

Survey interviews are conducted to produce objective, accurate information in which interviewers ask questions as worded and their discretionary speech is carefully managed. To limit interviewer influence over answers and reduce between-interviewer variance, Standardized Interviewing (SI) requires interviewers to administer "nondirective…

Background/Context: Social network analysis has been used to demonstrate an association between individuals' relationships and their engagement in areas such as public health (Perry & Pescosolido, 2015) and teacher professional development (Penuel, 2009). We extend and apply this approach to the higher education context. We operationalize…

Identifying illicit behavior in survey research is inherently problematic, since self-reports are untrustworthy. We argue that fraudulent interviewers can, however, be identified through statistical deviance of the distributional parameters of their interviews. We document that a high proportion of the variation in the data is due to the…

An increasing age of respondents and cognitive impairment are usual suspects for increasing difficulties in survey interviews and a decreasing data quality. This is why survey researchers tend to label residents in retirement and nursing homes as hard-to-interview and exclude them from most social surveys. In this article, I examine to what extent…

Increasingly surveys are using interviewers to collect objective health measures, also known as biomeasures, to replace or supplement traditional self-reported health measures. However, the extent to which interviewers affect the (im)precision of biomeasurements is largely unknown. This article investigates interviewer effects on several…