Interviewer Variance Of Interviewer and Respondent Behaviors: A Comparison Between Calendar and Conventional Interviewing

Past work in retrospective reporting in surveys has looked at calendar and conventional questionnaire interviewing in regards to interviewer variance on responses (Sayles, Belli, & Serrano, 2010) and verbal behaviors among respondents and interviewers (Bilgen & Belli, 2010), but interviewer variance on verbal behaviors has not yet been examined. In this research, we compare the interviewer variance of respondent and interviewer verbal behaviors between 165 calendar and 162 conventional interviews.  The types of interviewer behaviors that were examined include those for retrieval probes, standardized associated behaviors, conversational behaviors, feedback, and rapport.  The types of respondent behaviors examined include the use of retrieval strategies, probe disagreements, expressions of cognitive difficulty, conversational behaviors, and rapport.  We find that almost all of interviewer variances of the behaviors differ significantly between calendar and conventional methods, the lone exception is for respondent laughter. The interviewer effects in all remaining respondent behaviors in calendar interviewing is higher than in conventional interviewing; however, the size of the interviewer effects for interviewer behaviors between methods are not in the same direction. By relating the interviewer variances on key verbal behaviors to their prevalence between the two interviewing methods, we infer whether the interviewer effects on the behavior were driven by the methods requiring different styles of interviewing, or by the interviewers themselves.