Self-administered Questions and Interviewer–Respondent Familiarity

Abstract

We examine the effects of interviewer-respondent familiarity on both response patterns and rates of item nonresponse when self-administered questions (SAQs) are used. We use SAQ data from a survey in which the researchers experimentally ensured that there would be varying degrees of familiarity between interviewers and respondents. Our results reveal only minimal differences in response patterns by degree of prior acquaintance between interviewer and respondent, indicating that SAQs are effective at eliminating potential bias stemming from such relationships. Our results for item nonresponse depend on how we measure the relationship between interviewer and respondent; but in all cases, it is clear that prior knowledge of one another, far from harmful, leads to low nonresponse rates to SAQs. Thus, researchers using SAQs may not need to adhere to the norm that interviewers and respondents must be strangers, with practical and cost-effective consequences for data collection.

A test of the stranger-interviewer norm in the Dominican Republic

“…It is possible that the effects of familiarity depend on the nature of the questions asked. For example, using the IRFP data, Rodriguez et al (2015) show no significant differences in responses and item non-response to the most sensitive questions in our survey instrument, which include number of lifetime and recent sex partners, abortions, and drug use, among others. However, as dictated by the IRB overseeing our study, these questions were placed in a self-administered part of our questionnaire, which may have diluted the significance of familiarity—though respondents had to still trust that the interviewer would not open the sealed envelope with their responses once out of sight.…”

“…Prior to the research presented here (and in related recent pieces—Weinreb et al 2011; Rodriguez et al 2015; Stecklov et al forthcoming), the effects of interviewer-respondent familiarity on data quality have only been examined statistically using non-experimental data from Kenya (Weinreb 2006). In contrast, we use survey data gathered in a carefully designed experiment fielded in the Dominican Republic.…”

“…While our focus here is on response validity, elsewhere we have examined the effects of interviewer-respondent familiarity on responses to questions that we could not validate, including item non-response rates and response patterns, social desirability bias and other identifiable differences by type of interviewer (Weinreb et al. 2011), response differences to sensitive questions in a self-administered portion of our survey instrument (Rodriguez et al 2015), and response variation on questions about fertility and contraceptive use (Stecklov et al forthcoming). …”

How do the design features of health hackathons contribute to participatory medicine?

“…The self-organising group dynamic that typically has fragile commitment that changes over the weekend (Jones et al, 2015), influenced our decision to set up a quiet and private interview space, invite people to complete the interviews at a time that suited them during the hackathon, and be available to support them if they had any questions. Self-administered interviews and questionnaires alike, especially if voluntary, are at risk of attracting fewer responses than assisted questionnaires and in-person interviews (Rodriguez et al, 2015). The benefits of honesty and openness in a voluntary activity that fitted the dynamics of a hackathon weekend outweighed the risk of low response rates.…”

“…Since self-administered interviews are not frequently reported in the literature, we used the strengths and weaknesses of self-administration for questionnaires to assist our decision to use self-administered interviews. Self-administration is perceived to improve the honesty and candidness of responses in the absence of the interviewer (Rodriguez, Sana, & Sisk, 2015). The tone of hackathons is usually voluntariness and generosity; we wanted to preserve this tone in the ethics of our data gathering.…”