Interviewer

Interviewers are survey staff who contact the people from whom the study seeks to gather data (i.e. respondents) to explain the study, encourage them to participate, and attempt to obtain a completed interview. Once a sample member agrees to participate in a survey, the interviewer is then responsible for administering the survey questions (i.e. survey instrument) to the respondent. At times, the skill sets necessary to successfully complete these two tasks—sample recruitment and data collection—differ in conflicting ways. In encouraging participation, interviewers must adapt (i.e. tailor) their approach to gain cooperation based on their interaction with the respondent, whereas for administering the questionnaire in most surveys they are encouraged to use a standardized, scripted approach.

Traditionally, there have been two types of survey interviewers: telephone interviewers and field interviewers. Telephone interviewers administer survey instruments over the telephone, whereas field interviewers go to a respondent's home (or business for business surveys) to contact respondents and complete the in-person interview face-to-face. More recently and at a growing pace, interviewers are also being used to provide technical assistance (e.g. help desk) to self-administered surveys, such as mail or Web.

This entry presents the responsibilities of interviewers, along with the various skills needed and the training and supervision of interviewers. Next, this entry discusses common interview techniques and the impact of interviewers on the data collected. Lastly, this entry addresses the importance of interviewers to the data collection effort.