RESEARCH METHODS-2 (SEMESTER-6) INTERVIEW STUDIES

ADVANTAGES OF INTERVIEW STUDIES

1.     Flexibility-  Flexibility is one of the most important and major advantages of interviews. The interviewers have scope for asking more specific and detailed responses, repeating and explaining questions again, in case needed.

 

2.     Response rate- In comparison to mailed questionnaires, there is a much higher response rate in interviews. People who are unable to read and write can be a part of interviews as well as people who are otherwise not interested in writing the responses can also be interviewed. Moreover, there are a number of people who simply are more confident in speaking than writing, in this case also interviews have an upper hand.

 

3.     Non-verbal behaviour- In case of interviews, the non-verbal behaviour of the respondent such as expressions and body language can be observed.

 

4.     Control over the environment- in interviews, the interviewer has the option to make the interview private, without disturbances et cetera.

 

5.     Question order - in contrast to mailed questionnaire, interviews have the option of flexible structure and order of questions in accordance with the responses.

 

6.     Spontaneity- interviews allow the interviewer to record more spontaneous answers which are in turn more informative and less normative as it gives less time to the respondent to think.

 

7.     Respondent alone can answer- interview makes sure that the respondent Is the only one responding, avoid prompting and cheating, which usually happens in the case of male questionnaires.

 

8.     Completeness- the interviewer can ensure in an interview all the questions are answered completely.

 

9.     Time of interview- interviews can record the exact time, date and place of the interview. So, in case an important event has occurred which can affect the responses during the interviews, the researcher has the chance to take that into consideration in his study.

 

10.  Greater complexity of questionnaire- in an interview, a more complex and detailed questionnaire structure can be used as there is scope of details and explanations, Which helps in a more elaborated research.

 

 

DISADVANTAGES OF INTERVIEW STUDIES

 

1.     Cost- interviews can be highly expensive. It can include high costs of administrators, field supervisors, interviewers and sometimes even PR personnel.

 

2.     Time- interviews are extremely time-consuming. This lesson interviews can be conducted in the given time.

 

3.     Interview bias-  at times there or viruses from both side-interviewer as well as respondent. Does there are chances of reduced validity of the responses.

 

4.     To opportunity to consult records- Compared to a mailed questionnaire, the interview generally does not provide the respondent time to conduct research or check records or consult the respondents family and friends about facts. This could lead to chances of gaps in the data and the respondent completely has to rely on his or her memory.

 

5.     Inconvenience- The respondents reasoning ability are adversely affected by factors such as fatigue, stress, illness, heat etc and the mailed questionnaire is the best opportunity for the respondent to answer with these adverse affects at minimum, making the interview method an inconvenient one. As the respondent might give answers in an interview situation that are less than his or her best effort due to external factors present.

 

6.     Less Anonymity- As compared to a questionnaire, the interview offers lesser anonymity, particularly if there’s no follow up. The interviewer poses a potential threat to the respondent as the interviewer knows the respondents personal details and particularly if the information know to the interviewer after the interview are what the respondent is sensitive about.

 

7.     Less standardised question wording- It maybe necessary for the interviewer to probe a great deal, to phrase the same question differently for different respondents or even to ask different questions of different respondents. While this flexibility can bean advantage, it can be a disadvantage as well, making it difficult to compare the answers of the respondents.

 

8.     Lack of accessibility to respondents- Due to accessibility issues, questionnaire is the best method for remote area’s.

 

THE INTERVIEW AS SOCIAL INTERACTION

 

This section talks about how various studies including those of  Williams, Phillips and Cooley suggest that interviews pose serious problems of reliability and validity. This is partly due to the fact that interviews are in actual interaction situations. Thus, the results of the participants (both interviewer and respondent) depend on  how  they define the situation, their perception of each other and so on. Most studies have been concerned about the effects of interviewers  on respondents, in other words, interview bias.

 

Interviewers like everybody else have their own values, attitudes and opinions which may be communicated to the respondent in the course of the interview. As a result the interviewer may lead the respondent, this is called the interview bias.

 

The section next talks about the mistakes committed by the respondent and the interviewer.

Mistakes made by the Respondent are -

1.     Deliberate Lying - This happens when the respondent doesn’t know the answer or is too sensitive to towards the question being asked.

2.     Probing Error- This happens when the respondent answers thinking the answer to the question is right, but in actuality it is wrong.

3.     Accidental Errors- This happens due to misinterpretation of the question by the respondent.

4.     Memory Failures- This happens when the respondent tries to remember the answer but fails to do so.

 

Mistakes made by the Interviewer are-

1.     Asking Error- This takes place when the interviewer asks to many questions.

2.     Probing Error- This takes place due to irrelevant or unnecessary questions asked by the interviewer.

3.     Recording Error- This takes place when the interviewer is unable to read his own handwriting.

4.     Cheating Error- This takes place when the interviewer records data without the permission of the respondent, for instance in Sting operations.

 

THE INTERVIEW AS A SECONDARY RELATIONSHIP

 

Data can be collected from two types of groups-the primary group and the secondary group. The primary group is the one which has characteristics like face-to-face attraction, intimate and close relationships and less number of participants. The examples include family, neighbourhood et cetera the interaction in primary group is often emotional. Since, the interaction here is long-term and intimate, it becomes difficult for members to receive responses, lie or ‘put up a front’ through impression management.

The opposite of this is the secondary group, where relationships are functional rather than emotional, it is formal, for a purpose, and restrained. Thus, here in lies the possibility of deceptive responses through impression management

 

So, the importance of this discussion as far as the interview is concerned is that, the relationship between interviewer and respondent is virtually always secondary rather than primary. Hence interview is the secondary data collection method as it involves pseudo conversations because it is based on group ties.

Therefore to counter this problem, interviewers are often advised to be non-directive, to refrain from offering opinions, to avoid expressions of approval or disapproval. It is suggested that they establish a rapport with the respondents that is a warm and friendly relationship, while at the same time, safeguarding against communicating their own expectations.

 

EFFECTS OF INTERVIEWER CHARACTERISTICS

 

In this section we see what happens when the interviewer and respondents differ in physical or social characteristics. Because there have been studies which show that these differences affect the quality of the data received.

Race and Ethnicity

·       What will be the impact when interviewer and respondent are of different races? So in this respect some cases are given.

·       A study was conducted on black respondents by National opinion research centre in 1942 and it showed that the results found by white interviewers were very different from those obtained by Black interviewers.

·       Also in another study of black respondents conducted during World war II, differences were seen between responses obtained by white and black interviewers. For example the black interviewers got 16% more responses than white interviewers.

·       Then later a study by Williams found at the degree of bias in the data was inversely related to the degree of social distance between respondent and interviewer.

·       Also, it is shown by the study that that when white interviewers interview black respondents they make more mistakes and vice versa.

·       Also in a study dealing with Jews and gentiles, when the interviewer was jew, the responses regarding the influence of Jews in US were very different than when the interviewer was a gentile.

·       Thus, from various studies, Schaeffer and Campbell found that the race of interviewer affects the response of the respondent. They found that the respondent consistently biased their answers in favour of the interviewer’s race. This is also observed by many other scholars also such as Anderson Reese etc.

Sex

·       So we have seen that the race of the interviewer has an impact on the respondent. Now we look at another characteristic that is sex of the interviewer.  So the sex of the interviewer has also been found to affect the respondent’s reaction.

·       For that, a study was conducted by Hyman. He gave each respondent a 50 words summary of a movie and then asked if he or she would like to see the film. It was observed that women clearly showed a more favourable response when interviewed by women whereas men showed a favourable response when interviewed by men. So it could be because women are more comfortable in responding women.

·       This is also shown by a comprehensive study of interviewer effects in a telephonic survey.

·       So we can say that we can say that that interviewer being female or male has an impact over responses.

Social Status

·       Here we are trying to find does the class difference between interviewer and respondent have an effect. Because it is generally observed that the interviewer are mostly from middle class whereas the respondents are mainly from lower class.

·       So the Classic study on the socio economic status of interviewers was conducted by Katz in this regard. What he did was he grouped some middle class interviewers with the lower class ones. It was observed that when the lower class interviewers interviewed low-income respondents they gave more radical answers on labour issues to them, than to the middle-class interviewer’s interviews.

·       Bradburn and Sudman found that education of interviewers also has an impact that is- the most educated interviewers made the Fewest error in question asking.

·       It is also found in study that highly educated respondents were not easily affected by the behaviour and status of the interviewer where as poorly educated respondents would be easily affected.

Age

·       So it is observed by studies that respondents were more Frank and honest with the interviewer when they were older than the interviewer.

·       But if we examine both age and Sex simultaneously, there was a definite tendency for young female interviewer to give young male respondents higher honesty than they gave older male respondents.

·       This shows that age of the interviewer also has an impact on the nature of responses.

Clothing and Grooming

·       There is very little or no mention of the appropriate dress for the interviewer but it is generally advisable that interviewer should dress in a fashion fairy similar to that of the people they will be interviewing.

·       Also, Goffmann emphasized that appearances are very important because they are the main sign to guide to the other person in a secondary relationship like interviewing.

·       So the uniform of the interviewer is important and the interviewer should dress like an interviewer so as to legitimize their role.

·       The interviewer should dress neutrally so as not to bias the respondents answer and should dress unobtrusively so that the emphasis will be on the interview rather than on appearance.

THE INTERVIEW

 

Approaching the Respondent

When approaching the respondent, the interviewer must perform all the functions that a cover letter performs for the questionnaire. The interviewer must be adaptable friendly and responsive. They must make the respondent feel that is to say whatever they feel like. The interviewer has to make sure to let the respondent know that their answers are confidential and must make the purpose of their study clear.

 

Dealing with Refusals

Respondent can refuse to be a part of an interview for multiple reasons :

1.     They may not be interested to be a part of the study

2.     The respondent might speak of foreign language adding to the communication gap

3.     The respondents might not find the timings for the interview to be convenient

4.     Respondent might find the interview to be silly or not worth their time

Etc.

While it is the interviewer job to make or to overcome the reasons for refusal, but if a respondent has a genuine reason then the interviewer Mein come back another time. It is also a possibility that there exists a great deal of social distance between the respondent and the interviewer due to race or sex differences and in such cases it is best if the interviewer did withdraws politely and is replaced by another interviewer having characteristics more similar to the respondent.

 

Conducting the Interview

1.     Ask questions as worded so as to allow easy comparison of answers from all respondents. But in case of any confusions, the questions must be clarified.

2.     Ask questions in Order show that the structure and construction of the entire interview is maintained.

3.     The interviewer must not lead the respondents. Reading the questions as stated make sure that the interviewer Guards against any biases or leading. The respondents must not be like their taking an examination or feel the need to please the interviewer. Hence it is very important for the interview was to be neutral before asking any questions.

LESS STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS

There are times when an interview is conducted in an unstructured manner without any questions written in advance. The interviewer conducts a freeform interview consisting of questions and forming them as they go along.

 

Open-ended Questions

Open ended questions are those which do not have a yes or no answer but rather require the respondent to give a lengthy explanation regarding their answer.

 

Probes

There are times when respondents give a very vague or general answer. In such cases probes are required. April is a follow-up question put forth by the interviewer so as to get rid of irrelevant information from the respondents answer and get much more specific information in return. Proverbs are essentially contingency questions that are to be used only if respondents answers seem to be ambiguous. Proverbs can be General or Specific.

·       General Probes

 

1.     Repeating the question - this is done when respondents hesitate or appear to not have understood the question.

2.     Repeating the answer - the interviewer might ask the respondent to repeat the answer in case they did not fully grasp what the respondent had to say.

3.     Indicating understanding and interest.

4.     Pause- the interviewer must pause and say nothing if the response is obviously incomplete and allowed the respondent to finish.

5.     Neutral questions and comments to indicate that respondents are on the right track.

 

 

·       Question specific Probes

 

Proverbs which are specific to a particular question are referred to as question specific probes.

( check book for examples)

 

THE FOCUSED INTERVIEW AND FOCUS GROUP

 

Focused Interview

●      The focused interview by Merton acts as an alternative from a structured or standardize interview.which used open ended and closed ended questions and instead used semi structured interview. 

●      Topics and hypotheses are selected in advance but certain flexibility is applied regarding actual question.

●      Instead of polling large numbers of people with straightforward question and quantifiable answer, researchers conducted in person interviews, engaging them in more open discussion.

●      The people interviewed are mostly involved in situation which they have seen, heard or take part in. This leads the researchers to determine aspects of the situation or create a set of hypothesis.

 

Focused Group

●      A focused group would typically involve between 5 to 8 people with a facilitator sometimes called moderator who leads the discussion on a particular topic by providing tasks in which the group is asked to respond to stimuli such as newspaper headlines or photographs.

●     Interviewing structure is set by investigating certain topics in advance to avoid random question that can degenerate the interview.

●      But certain flexibility is applied to questions as it can yield information leading to further hypothesis and also dive into the responder’s mind and seeking his or her true feelings.

●      Focused groups is a direct descendent of focused interview

●      The term “group” hugely distinguishes the focus group from the previous focused interview by applying group session to expand the knowledge and information of certain topic.

 

What are its uses?

●     The focus group encourage individual to bring forth their opinions and feelings under the supervision of a trained moderator.

●     The focused groups aims for close observation and studies along with a sense of quality.

●     Popularity of the focused groups can be seen as it is widely used in sociology, marketing, public health, social welfare, education, psychology and many more.

●     Focused group is popularly used by the advertising industry as it is a type of qualitative research focused on the nature of people’s preferences and thoughts.

●     The focus group couldn’t tell marketers what percentage of people buy a certain product or brand but it could tell them more about the people who do and their reasoning for doing so.

●      Focus groups do not provide definite conclusions for business and sales but it is used for exploratory research that generate new ideas and marketing based on deeper understanding of consumer habits.

●      Focus group lacks precision as compared to surveys as surveys provided more details but the two studies can reach conclusion for nearly 90 percent of the variables studied.

●      The negative aspect of focused groups is that it can break down into group therapy, party and events where the researcher loses its purpose.

●      In focused groups exact data is difficult to analyze and number of respondent is not large. But we can use focus group as a probe in certain survey issues and it is a great help by making question which is helpful in the preliminary stages of survey.

●      Focus groups do have limitations and the main one is that the simple act of observing something can change it. The answers participants give are likely to be affected by the presence of the researchers, social pressure from the rest of the group.

 

Advantages   

1.     Provides data quickly

2. Cost is relatively low
3. Provide qualitative data
4. Provides more depth of coverage and more details than is usually possible in large surveys.
5. Provide more opportunity and flexibility and opportunity to probe than in large surveys.

 

Disadvantages

1. Does not provide quantitative data and are not suitable for statistical analysis
2. Results are not generalizable to larger population
3. Number of people interviewed is small
4. More nonresponse than in survey
5. Lack of privacy effects the responses.

 

THE CLINICAL INTERVIEW

 

●      Focused interview is similar to a clinical interview as the interviewer chooses certain part of the individual’s history and life to ask as a question since the cycle of question can be important and informative

●      Clinical interview is flexible and unstructured.

●      For example, if a research is conducted on the topic of homosexuality and if the researcher beieves that early childhood socialization patterns plays an important role in it, he/she will in a candid manner ask the respondent about their early childhood and their experiences.

 

THE UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW

 

●     The unstructured interview is a nondirective interview where interaction is kept to a minimum to help the respondent  channel with his or her innermost feelings.

●      The chief feature of the nondirective interview is its use on neutral probes like “Why?” or “Uh huh” or “Thats interesting”. These can probe the respondents repressed feelings that he or she may not even be willing to admit.

●     Gorden explains the importance of unstructured interview by stating that it provide a relaxed and unhurried atmosphere that is not stressful to the respondent.

●     In highly structured interview the respondent may feel pressured to remain on schedule leading to incomplete and unintentional false statement.

●     Gorden  argues against the believe that unstructured interview is dangerous, he points out that in structured interview bias can be easily built up and that easy to code, typed questionnaire does not ensure superiority.

 

PROJECTIVE METHODS

 

1.     Projective methods originated in clinical psychology and psychiatry as a way to showcase a respondent’s true inner feelings, but are useful whenever direct questioning is not possible or when the true purpose of a study is not revealed. These techniques can be used both by children as well as adults. Egs. Include- doll play, picture interpretation, and sentence completion. Projective methods are also called indirect data gathering procedures, as they avoid direct questioning about the topic.

2.     Projective methods are open-ended and unstructured except for the stimulus that is presented to the respondent. The interviewer presents this stimulus with minimal structure and interpretation so that the responses that emerge are spontaneous and raw.

3.      2 other projective texts in clinal studies are Rorschach test and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). The Rorschach consists of 10 cards containing inkblots that the respondent is asked to interpret. The TAT consists of a series of pictures to be interpreted by the respondent. Depending on their response, their further analysis is made. Some of these pictures are easy to interpret, while others are not.

4.     Another effective projective technique is when the respondent is asked to describe another person’s motives or attitudes. It may be observed that people would give normative or socially applicable responses, either because they really believe this way or because they do not want to deviate from the normal. Lastly, another projective technique would also be to ask the respondent to describe the kind of person who would do a particular type of thing.

 

THE TELEPHONE INTERVIEW

 

1.     The telephone interview includes when the interview is itself conducted on the telephone. During the 1990s, this type of interview had matured into a dominant method, rivaling with mailed questionnaires and personal interviews.

2.     There are various reasons for the popularity of telephone interviews- firstly, telephone has replaced letter writing; secondly, many people are often not at home and are thus hesitant to admit to strangers when they are out; lastly, many interviewers are hesitant to enter strange neighborhoods.

3.     Telephone interviews are non-intrusive, and are quicker and less expensive. One cannot use visuals easily, but can expect more satisfactory and elaborate answers. Telephone interviewing has become an important part of survey method, and thus most comprehensive books have a section on it.

4.     Sudman and Bradburn provided an elaborate checklist for designing telephone survey questionnaires. They said that if pictures were being used, they must be mailed prior to the beginning of the questionnaire; the consultation of other people or records is difficult and rather impossible; complex questions can be facilitated through CATI systems; and that telephone interviews can be lengthy and too complex to conduct.

5.     Alreck and Settle disagree with Sudman and Bradburn, as they say that telephone interviews are much shorter than personal interviews. They note the absence of interviewer bias through factors such as personal appearance. They add that these interviews require less training and instructions, and can be monitored very easily. 

6.     One chief advantage of telephone interviewing is that it is fast. With this survey method, the interviewer need not leave his/her office. Another advantage is that it is cheaper. The respondent is anonymous for the interviewer, hence he is safe from usual interviewer biases. Lastly, the sample need not be geographically clustered in a given area, and hence telephone interviews also make more efficient use of bilingual interviewers.

7.     One disadvantage of telephone interviewing is that the respondents are far less motivated, probably because the interviewer has no direct control over them and thus, they can simply terminate the interview by merely hanging up. Some respondents are distrustful, and believe that the interviewer is either playing a prank on them or has an ulterior motive. Another limitation is that visual aids such as pictures cannot be used here. Since the interviewer cannot see the respondent, he cannot gather non-verbal data and also has minimal control.

 

RANDOM DIGIT DIALING (RDD)

 

1.     RDD is a process for mechanically dialing, in a random fashion, from all possible combinations of the digits in a set of working telephone numbers. Before telephone accessibility, a large number of people did not have phones and those who did were not sample satisfactory. This was so because a lot of numbers were not listed in the directory, and some were listed twice, giving them an increased probability of selection.

2.     RDD is able to dial all working number with equal probability. Since the worker is not working with a directory, and is choosing randomly, there is no bias stemming. Though, RDD is a significant advancement, it does not automatically eliminate all sampling problems. Eg. Households with two or more telephone numbers will clearly be over-represented, and it may also be possible that one household member will answer at home while another would use a non-residential number.

3.     There may often be quite a high “dross rate”, meaning that a large numbr of telephone numbers must be dialed for each working household number. The use of RDD still poses problems stemming from the now relatively rare number of persons who do not have telephones.

 

COMPUTER-ASSISTED TELEPHONE INTERVIEWING (CATI)

 

1.     In CATI, survey questionnaires are displayed on computer terminals for interviewers, who then type the responses directly onto a disk. In this system, the interviewer follows the questions on the computer terminal, and also codes the respondent’s answers directly onto the computer.

2.     The prototype CATI was developed in the 1970s at Chilton Research Services and at the University of California, LA. CATI systems not only operate with minicomputers, but with microcomputers too.

3.     Sudman outlines the advantages of CATI i.e. speed, rapid analysis of costs, sampling, record keeping, use of complex skip, and probing instructions. The disadvantages include the need for preplanning and preprogramming, the difficulty in using open-ended questions, and the time required for entering answers into the computer. 

 

TELEPHONE VS FACE-TO-FACE

-        It has been reported that the response rate for telephone surveys remains at least five percent lower than that achieved in personal interviewing.

 

-        The lowest response rates and the higher rates of termination of telephone interviews would seem to indicate that respondents are not as happy with the telephone interviews as with the face to face interview.

 

-        Telephone respondents were initially more suspicious, were more likely to ask how long the interview would take, show less interest in the interview and more often felt that the interview lasted too long.

 

 

OTHER ISSUES IN TELEPHONE SURVEYS

-        As telephone surveys have become more common in the last decade, researchers have had occasion to study a variety of issues concerning telephone service.

 

-        They deal with issues including interviewer voices, confidentiality reminders, RDD versus list of telephone numbers as the basis for the sample, and optimal times for telephone interviews.

 

-        One of the major factors affecting the telephone survey in the 1990s and beyond is the continuing growth of new technology, such as the fax machine.

 

-        With the growth of new technology, it seems certain that the technological development will involve increase supervision of interviewers to ensure standardization and comparability among interviews and to reduce errors.

 

-        Regardless of the complications caused by the growth of Technologies, telephone surveys remain unsurpassed in the classical role of providing the fastest National surveys. No other mode can compete, including the Computer service because computer are not as accessible as the telephone.

 

THE COMPUTER OR ELECTRONIC SURVEY

-        In the last decade or so it has become common for survey researchers to use computers not only for analysing data but also for assisting in the interview.

 

-        The computer can virtually replace the paper questionnaire used by the telephone interviewer which has many advantages, including flexibility in using a complex questionnaire and ease of storing and analysing data.

 

-        However like the mailed questionnaire, it has some limitations, including those posed by the reading ability of the respondents, inability to hear characteristic of the interviewer’s voice and so forth.

 

Advantages

-        Money savings : the computer survey reduces processing caused by automating the transformation of raw data into computer readable form.

-        Time savings : the Computer survey is potentially the fastest method for processing and storing data as this can be done electronically in a fraction of time.

-        Use of probes and complex questionnaires : like face to face and telephone interviewing, the computer survey offers the ability to probe or even clarify a question if the respondent appears unable to answer.

-        Anonymity : the computer survey allows a respondent the advantage of interacting with an interviewer who cannot see the respondent’s face or hear his or her voice.

-        Ease of completion : electronic surveys are ideal for respondents who like to interact with computers and who are accustomed to doing so frequently. Such respondents may judge answering an electronic survey to be as easy as answering their daily computer mail, and may in fact think that it is fun.

-        Remote locations: Computer surveys may turn out to be the ideal method for studying respondents in remote locations all over the world. They are much faster than mail surveys, and may be able to avoid many of the problems such as wrong numbers, expense, problems caused by time differences and so on.

-        Less evaluation anxiety : electronic surveys generally ask for relatively little sensitive social information and so should result in relatively less evaluation anxiety for the respondent.

 

Disadvantages

Just as computer surveys have a number of advantages, they also have disadvantages.

 

-        Narrow sample : the most glaring disadvantage of computer services in the 1990 is that so many people do not have access to computers or simply are not comfortable using them.

-        Inability to see nonverbal cues: the Computer surveys share with the mailed questionnaire the inability to use communication other than written. This means that any information that the interviewer would like to convey via gestures, loudness of voice and so on, cannot be used.

-        No control over environment :the interviewer in a computer survey cannot generally control the environment in which the respondent is answering.

-        Possibly Biased sample : the computer survey may face a Biased sample. Not only is the sample available for a computer survey more likely to favour wealthier and better educated individuals, it is also likely to preclude older persons, who are less likely to be computer literate.

 

Regardless of the nuances and complexities of electronic surveys, it is clear that they have a number of distinct advantages for survey Research and doubtless will be used increasingly in the future.

 

FAX SURVEYS

 

Fax surveys or somewhat similar to computer surveys but not entirely the same in fact, in some ways they are a mailed questionnaire survey since they have the ability to transmit the entire paper document to the respondent.

 

The advantages of fax survey are as follows:

Remote locations – using fax surveys makes it possible to reach remote locations.

Transmission of the questionnaire – since the entire questionnaire can be sent to the respondent particular features of the questionnaire such as question placement, length of the questionnaire and so forth can be emphasised.

Money and time saving – the fax survey saves interviewing costs and time.

Other advantages include questionnaire completed at the respondents convenience, greater assurance of anonymity, standardised wording, no interviewer bias, securing information and accessibility.

The disadvantages of fax survey are as follows:

1.      Many of the disadvantages of the facts survey are similar to that of the mail questionnaires surveys which include lack of flexibility, verbal behaviour only, no control over environment, no control over question order, many questions remain unanswered, spontaneous answers can't be recorded, no control over date of response and cannot use complex questionnaire format and possibly biased sample, they also include lack of accessibility as sometimes the desired candidates might not have access to a fax machine.

2.      Since there is no literature available on the efficacy of fax surveys, their efficacy cannot be judged. However they do offer real advantages over telephone survey in terms of not having to call back the respondent if they do not answer answer, and a particularly advantages in international surveys, they also have an obvious advantage over computer service since the respondent only needs paper to read the questionnaire and does not need an access to computer.

 

INTERVIEWER TRAINING

 

Many questionnaires used in interview studies are extremely long and complicated and contain a plethora of contingency questions, probes, complex charts, sometimes they might need to insert questions or information from previous interviews, and sometimes interviews need the extensive use of auxiliary materials. In these instances a lengthy set of instructions are required in addition to those on the questionnaire itself. Therefore, it is important that the interviewer be trained. however, complete familiarity is generally not extended to the exact hypothesis and the findings expected as this information may tend to bias the results. Stages of the training are as follows:

Briefing by study director – a brief survey of the purpose of the study is given, information like how many interviews will be there, how long the average interview should be, how many interviewers will be working, how long will be the interview in face and other such essential information is covered during this stage.

3.      Reading the questionnaire – after the interviewers have read the questionnaire and any additional material required problem areas of the questionnaire are discussed such as skip questions or questions which require additional information and open ended questions with probes.

4.      Practice interviews – after the questionnaire has been thoroughly reviewed it is time to conduct pre-test or practical interviews during which the interviewer should take notes on any problem areas such as unclear or ambiguous questions or unanticipated responses.

5.      Discussion session – this stage all the problems are reviewed question by question by the study director so that they can be discussed and corrected and then the interviewers are free to ask general questions.

 

ENTERING THE FIELD

 

1.      Gaining entry into the field is not always easy and science social science research frequently deals with social problems and these problems are often found in lower class neighbourhoods, such neighbourhoods tend to be over studied which leads to resentment among the respondents. In addition, respondents may have a feeling of alienation of callousness at being the object of the study they had no part in designing and have no control over. This is based on the belief that the researcher is hampered in designing the study by the fact that they are not a part of the community and by a feeling that is community members had a part in the study design they would greatly improve all aspects of it.

2.      It is the study directors responsibilities determine what resistance interviewers might face and to deal with it in advance. They should study the neighbourhood and once the possible resistance has been determined, a number of public relations approaches may be used to gain entry such as sending a letter of introduction to the interviewer or sending it to the respondents a few days in advance, et cetera. Another widely used strategy is to meet with the community leaders to discuss the study and elicit the suggestions and recommendations and opening an office in the community to recruit interviewers and other employees.

3.      After the interviewers enter the field they need to be monitored closely to ensure smooth progress and to correct any anticipated problems. It is customary to supply interviewers with the telephone number that they can give to the respondents who have a question or complaint or need to verify the interviewers identity. As the interviewing precedes the field director should be available to answer interviewer questions and sport check completed questionnaires. Spot checking in the early interview process can serve the function of an extended pre-test and reveal problems that might have slipped in the protest, it also helps to discover whether any interviewer is obtaining an unusually large number of non-responses or an answer questions reveal whether the interviewer is understanding the directions properly or if they are deliberately falsifying data. As a part of the supervisory procedure, the director made telephone respondents to make sure the interview conducted was as claimed and even read the view a respondent on some of the questions to see whether the interviewer is recording responses correctly.

 

THE PANEL STUDY

 

1.      Surveys are generally conducted at one point in time because the sample survey it is so large that it would be very costly to repeat it, in addition the same sampling design may not suffice for more than one survey, moreover interviewing takes a lot of time and is very expensive.

2.      But there are a number of disadvantages in collecting data at only one point such as chance fluctuation in data may occur only on the day surveyed, further a cross-sectional survey offers no way to study trends in the data or seasonal variations and there is no way to tell whether relationship found between two variables will remain the same always change with time. However, this loss of information over time is partly compensated for by the much larger sample that can be used when the study is done at a single point.

3.      If the sample is not too large study can be conducted over time such as a common longitudinal survey is the panel study in which the respondents are in for interviewed at two or more points in time regarding the same problems. Another type of longitudinal survey is the trend study which surveys the same number of respondents from the same population each time but not necessarily the same respondents which leads to a difference in the data from one survey to the next.

4.      The disadvantages of a panel study is that the cost is much greater than a cross-sectional study since interviews must be conducted to more times, although in some cases cost can be reduced by drawing a smaller sample. The respondents maybe reluctant to participate in repeated interviews. Another problem called the panel mortality which means that the size of the panel decreases from one wave to the next, which may be caused by death or any other event that makes the respondent from an earlier wave unavailable for the re-interviewing. For these reasons, panel studies are not frequently conducted but in some cases they are greatly needed, for example a researcher is studying voting behaviour. Another major use of panel studies is an attempting to establish causality since to study change we generally need to study over time.

 

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

 

1.      There have been a number of attempts to assess the validity of the interview by comparing its results the data gathered by some other means. There are a number of ways that area can be introduced such as a respondent answering in a socially desirable manner or being ashamed to admit that they do not know answer, et cetera.

2.      Parry and Crossley compare respondents answers with known facts for eight classes of information and found that when asked basic general questions the respondents gave correct answers however for events occurring some years before the information was considerably less accurate.

3.      From the comparison between mailed questionnaire and interview we know that interview tends to be more valid for certain purpose than the male questionnaire since the control one has in an interview study strengthens the quality of the data gathered, the ability to control the response rate, etc are a few advantages of the interview method. However the quality of the data gathered in interview studies maybe weakened by biases or errors introduced by the interviewer by clerical error, interview were cheating etc.

4.      It is to note that the majority of the studies that have compared the mail questionnaire and the interview find virtually no difference in the quality of the data gathered on identical questions but have reported differences when it comes to yielding better data through mail questionnaires on sensitive issues. Most researchers prefer interviewing to mail in questionnaires simply because of the higher rate of response but the much higher cost and greater time involved serve as barriers to interviewing.