Interview Data Collection Procedures

1. Understand the interviewer’s role. The telephone or field-workers should be perceived as part of the measurement instrument, with the potential to create error and bias.
2. Consider the data collection agency. Study the agency data collection process and check on agency cost and availability and quality carefully.
3. Appreciate the interviewer management task. Study the interviewer management functions and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of an in-house crew.
4. Choose the mode of interviewing. Evaluate the capabilities and limitations of data collection agencies, compared to an in-house interviewing crew.
5. Reduce potential interviewing error. Consider instruction, interrogation, response, scaling, recording, and interpretation as possible sources of error.
6. Control interviewing and response bias. Check each element of the questionnaire and process for each of the major sources of bias.
7. Handle instrumentation carefully. Compose the greeting, qualification and quota criteria, interviewer instructions, and questionnaire format to avoid error and bias.
8. Identify the unique aspects of each process. Recognize the distinctions between personal and telephone interviewing, making required adjustments for the mode selected.