Transcript Slide 1

CHAPTER SIX
SURVEY RESEARCH:
INTERVIEWS AND TELEPHONE
SURVEYS
Survey Research:
lnterviews and Telephone Surveys

Interviews involve face-to-face interaction between the
interviewer and the respondent; the purpose being to
gather information.

Telephone surveys allow the researcher to obtain wide
and representative samples without the need for a large
field staff and are inexpensive and quick.
Question
What are some distinct advantages
of interviewing
as a data-gathering strategy?
Three Basic Forms of Interviews

Structured Interviews (Closed Response): Questions are either
factual or they seek responses that fit an expectable pattern in a
check-off format.

Unstructured Interviews (Open-end Response): Interviews can be
focused, clinical, or nondirective – they provide for open-ended
responses. These interviews provide more qualitative detail.

Depth (Focus) Interviews: Interviews are more intensive and
detailed than a standard survey with fewer subjects. These
interviews are useful for life histories or case histories.
General Procedures In Interviews

Training and orientation: familiarize yourself with the study’s
purpose.

Arranging and scheduling: i.e., timing and identification.

Demeanor; i.e., dress, language, linking interviewer with interviewee
re: age, gender, etc.
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Administration: be knowledgeable of questionnaire, be able to clarify
questions, probing, and confidentiality.

Exit: be thankful and pay attention to informal remarks at the end for
“off the record” info.

Recording: make sure the interview responses are self-explanatory
and “cleaned up” for analysis.
Question
What impact does the wording of questions
have on response in surveys,
public opinion polls,
and victim surveys?
Advantages of Interviews
Interviews enhance personal contact which allows for:

Observation

Clarification of misunderstandings

Control of respondents

Opportunity to employ visual aids

Probing: Follow-up questions that expand or clarify response

Make return visits

Gear language to the level of the respondent

More flexible than mail questionnaires
Disadvantages of Interviews

Time consuming

Costly

Potential interviewer bias and mistakes, i.e., interviewer effect

Need for field supervision

Difficulty in reaching certain respondents

Potential for questionable wording in public opinion polls, i.e.,
Gallup, Washington Post, etc.
Telephone Surveys
Advantages:

No field staff

Simple checks on interview bias

Quick and Inexpensive

Easy follow-up

More effective on locating hard-to-locate respondents

Can be done quickly through computerization (CATI: Computer
Assisted Telephone Interviews).

Random Digit Dialing: Provides for stratified and simple random
samples of telephone numbers.
Telephone Surveys
Disadvantages:

Reduced scope

Less in-depth responses

High refusal rates, i.e., screening questions

Exclusion of disproportions of populations, i.e., poor and
minorities
Recording Interviews and
Telephone Surveys
Recording interviews and telephone surveys
can be an asset
in obtaining more complete responses and more detail;
however,
recordings can create problems regarding issues of
anonymity and concerns of actual permission
regarding sensitive areas.
Computer Software
and Interviews

Computer Assisted Programmed Interviewing (CAPI): Good for
longitudinal studies. Eliminates interviewer bias, more
standardized responses, assures anonymity, and reduces coding
error.

Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI): Questionnaire
items are flashed on a video monitor, and the interviewers can
immediately enter responses on the keyboard, i.e., NCVS.

Continuous Audience Response Technology (CART): Measures
response to stimuli, i.e., video presentations.

Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Administered Interviewing (ACASI):
involves information on the computer screen being simultaneously
played on earphones (also, CASI, without earphones).
Victim Surveys
Victim Surveys
provide a valuable
additional assessment of crime.
National Crime
Victimization Survey

The NCVS collects information on both central city
households and commercial establishments.

The NCVS is comprised of National Crime Panels. Its data
collection method is based on a national stratified multistage
cluster samples of households and a two-stage probability
sample of businesses.

The emphasis is on “bounding” where crime panels pretest or
initially interview to establish reference points for the three
year reporting period (helps eliminate telescoping).
Household units are interviewed in six month intervals and
rotated out of the panel and replaced by another sub-group
every three years.
NCVS/UCR
The true crime rate is probably
somewhere between the UCR,
which underestimates crime
and the victim surveys, which overestimates crime.
For crime types such as occupational, corporate,
and public order crime,
both measures underestimate crime.
Benefits of Victim Surveys

Provides an opportunity to obtain victim characteristics

Establishes a more accurate estimate for crimes of rape and
assault that are sometimes underreported in UCR data
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Local jurisdictions can conduct their own victim surveys
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Provides an opportunity to obtain offender characteristics and
methodology

Provides an opportunity to assess attitudes of victims, i.e., fear
of crime, attitudes toward police, reasons for not reporting
crimes to the police
Victim Surveys
Disadvantages:

High cost

Mistaken interpretation of incidents

Memory failure/decay

Sampling bias
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Over/underreporting/false reporting
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Telescoping
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Interviewer effects
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Coding and mechanical error
Question
What are some methods used
for controlling methodological problems
in victim surveys?
Problems With the
Method of Assessment
Problems encountered with most methods
of data gathering
are not inherent to the nature of the method;
rather,
the problems arise because the method
is used as the sole means of assessment.