1. Surveys II: Issues in Interviewing

2. Surveys vs “Conversations” Regardless of the quality of a survey instrument, there are issues surrounding interviewing as a venue for social interaction the can impair valid survey findings. Sudman and Bradburn (1983) identified key differences between structured survey interviews and ordinary conversation; these differences should make interviews standardised, comparable, and valid for social research:

4. Sources of Bias in Interviews Despite attempts at valid sampling, good questionnaire construction, and well-trained interviewers, there are still many possibilities for bias in the interview process. Six of these are as follows: 1. Respondent Error 2. Unintentional Interviewer Error 3. Intentional Subversion by the Interviewer 4. Influence of Characteristics/Behaviours of Interviewer 5. Influence of Characteristics/Behaviours of Respondent 6. Failure to Probe, or Improper Probing

5. The Problem of Standardization The goal of standardization is RELIABILITY, the assurance that, despite a huge number of social encounters between many interviewers and hundreds or thousands of respondents, ALL of those encounters are comparable because all of the respondents have reacted to the same behavioural stimuli. Having well-trained interviewers reading clearly-written survey instruments is how this standardization is supposed to be assured. However, standardization is often elusive and even impossible, for at least three reasons: 1. The problem of translation 2. Reliance on non-scripted conversational feedback (Suchman, Maynard and Schaefer) 3. Even if standardization is achieved, it reduces external validity (Lazarsfeld)