978-1111826925 Chapter 10 Lecture Note Part 1

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Chapter 10

Survey Research: Communicating with Respondents

AT-A-GLANCE

I. Interviews as Interactive Communication

A. Noninteractive media

II. Personal Interviews

A. Advantages of personal interviews

Opportunity for feedback

Probing complex answers

Length of interview

Completeness of questionnaire

Props and visual aids

High participation

B. Disadvantages of personal interviews

Interviewer influence

Lack of anonymity of respondent

Cost

C. Door-to-door interviews and shopping mall intercepts

Door-to-door interviews

Callbacks

Mall intercept interviews

D. Global considerations

III. Telephone Interviews

A. Mobile phone interviews

B. Phone interview characteristics

Speed

Cost

Absence of face-to-face contact

Cooperation

Incentives to respond

Representative samples

Callbacks

Limited duration

Lack of visual medium

C. Central location interviewing

D. Computer-assisted telephone interviewing

E. Computerized voice-activated telephone interview

F. Global considerations

IV. Self-Administered Questionnaires

A. Mail questionnaires

Geographic flexibility

Cost

Respondent convenience

Anonymity of respondent

Absence of interviewer

Standardized questions

Time is money

Length of mail questionnaire

B. Response rates

C. Increasing response rates for mail surveys

Cover letter

Money helps

Interesting questions

Follow-ups

Advance notification

Survey sponsorship

Other techniques

Keying mail questionnaires with codes

D. Global considerations

V. Self-Administered Questionnaires Using Other Forms of Distribution

A. Fax surveys

B. E-mail surveys

C. Internet surveys

Speed and cost-effectiveness

Visual appeal and interactivity

Respondent participation and cooperation

Representative samples

Accurate real-time data capture

Callbacks

Personalized and flexible questioning

Respondent anonymity

Response rates

Security concerns

D. Kiosk interactive surveys

E. Survey research that mixes modes

F. Text-message surveys

VI. Selecting the Appropriate Survey Research Design

VII. Pretesting

VIII. Ethical Issues in Survey Research

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Summarize ways researchers gather information through interviews

2. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of conducting door-to-door, mall intercept, and telephone

interviews

3. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of distributing questionnaires through the mail, the

Internet, and by other means

4. Discuss the importance of pretesting questionnaires

5. Describe ethical issues that arise in survey research

CHAPTER VIGNETTE: Mobile Surveys Catching On, and Catching

Respondents “On the Go”!

Mobile surveying technologies now integrate SMS text messaging (“texting”) with electronic surveys.

Respondents answer single or multiple choice questions, or even provide open-ended responses to

questions. These “instant feedback” types of survey responses can have many different business

applications. Researchers interested in experiential surveying use mobile surveys to capture people’s

feelings at that particular instant, and thus can create a longitudinal understanding of people’s attitudes

and emotional states over time.

SURVEY THIS!

How would you classify the survey you participated in as part of this class? Which approach did it use?

What media type was involved? What do you think the response rate for this survey is? Students are

instructed to e-mail the survey link to 10 friends not taking this class. How many actually responded?

What factors of this survey contribute to either a relatively high or relatively low response rate?

RESEARCH SNAPSHOTS

Being Good Neighbors Means Learning About Them First

In 2004-2005, students from a community college engaged in a service learning project and

captured information from an often missed demographic in our society—the elderly. They

established a door-to-door survey of older adults, and their hard work led to the inclusion of

elderly adult needs as part of the Good Neighbor Initiative, which included programs for literacy,

hunger, homelessness, and health. Without going from house to house, it may not have been

possible for the community to capture the specific needs of this important population in their city.

Automated Phone Surveys of Teens

Computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) and computerized self-interviewing, in which

the subjects listen to prerecorded questions and then respond by entering answers with the

telephone’s keypad, have been used to ask teens potentially sensitive questions. For example,

teens were more likely to say they had smoked or lack a firm commitment not to smoke in the

future using this method. However, when a parent was present, their responses were less likely to

indicate smoking desire or susceptibility. This suggests that teens might be underreporting their

smoking behavior.

Mixed Mode Data Collection: The Case of Web and Telephone Surveys

While the advantages in time and cost efficiencies of Internet-based surveys are apparent, a major

criticism is the low response rate. This gives rise to the question, “Would the information

provided by sample members that did not respond to the web survey differ from that provided by

web survey respondents?” Research investigated this using a “sequential mixed-mode data

collection” procedure that compared web-based surveys and telephone surveys of

nonrespondents. While response rates were much higher for telephone the telephone survey,

comparison of the responses revealed very few significant differences. It appears that web-based

surveys are not only fast and cost-effective, they provide the same information as the far more

costly telephone surveys.

OUTLINE

I. INTERVIEWS AS INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION

Human interactive media are a personal form of communication.

Electronic interactive media allow businesses to reach a large audience, personalize

individual messages, and interact using digital technology.

Largely controlled by the users themselves.

No other human need be present.

The Internet is radically altering many organizations’ research strategies, being the prominent

form of new electronic interactive media.

Electronic interactive media also include DC-ROM and DVD materials, touch-tone telephone

systems, touch-screen interactive kiosks in stores, and other forms of digital technology.

Noninteractive Media

Self-administered questionnaires printed on paper are noninteractive.

Less flexible than surveys using interactive communication media.

II. PERSONAL INTERVIEWS

A personal interview is a form of direct communication in which an interviewer asks

respondents questions face-to-face.

This versatile and flexible method is a two-way conversation between interviewer and

respondent.

Advantages of Personal Interviews

Opportunity for Feedback

Offer the lowest chance that respondents will misinterpret questions because the

interviewer can clarify the instruction or questions.

Probing Complex Answers

Although interviewers are expected to ask questions exactly as they appear on the

questionnaire, probing allows them some flexibility.

Personal interviews vary in the degree to which questions are structured and in

the amount of probing required.

Personal interview is especially useful for obtaining unstructured information.

Length of Interview

General rules of thumb:

Mails surveys should not exceed 6 pages.

Telephones interviews should not exceed 10 minutes.

Personal interviews can be much longer (i.e., 1 ½ hours).

Should be clear about how long participation should take when requesting

participation.

Online surveys should include a completion meter that shows a respondent’s

progress.

Completeness of Questionnaire

The social interaction between a well-trained interviewer and a respondent

increases the likelihood that the respondent will answer all of the items on the

questionnaire.

Item nonresponse – failure to provide an answer to a question—is least likely to

occur when an experienced interviewer asks questions directly.

Props and Visual Aids

Face-to-face interviews allow the showing of new product samples, sketches of

proposed advertising, or other visual aids.

High Participation

Presence of an interviewer generally increases the percentage of people willing to

complete the interview.

All respondents have to do is talk.

Disadvantages of Personal Interviews

Interviewer Influence

Some evidence suggests that demographic characteristics of the interviewer

influence respondents’ answers.

Differential interviewer techniques may be a source of bias (i.e., tone of voice,

appearance).

Lack of Anonymity of Respondent

Because a respondent is not anonymous, researchers often spend considerable

time and effort to phrase sensitive questions to avoid social desirability bias.

Cost

Personal interviews are expensive.

Cost is influenced by:

geographic proximity of respondents

length and complexity of the questionnaire

number of people who are nonrespondents because they could not be

contacted

Door-to-Door Interviews and Shopping Mall Intercepts

Door-to-Door Interviews

Because door-to-door interviews increase the participation rate, they may provide

a more representative sample of the population than mail questionnaires.

Can reach people who do not have telephones, who have unlisted numbers, or

who are otherwise difficult to contact.

May underrepresent some groups and overrepresent others based on the

geographic area covered.

May exclude individuals who live in multiple-dwelling units with security

systems or executives who are too busy to participate.

Some people simply will not open the door when a stranger knocks.

Becoming a thing of the past.

Callbacks

Callbacks, or attempts to recontact individuals selected for the sample, are the

major means of reducing nonresponse error.

Important in door-to-door interviews because not-at-home individuals (e.g.,

working parents) may systematically vary from those who are at home (e.g.,

nonworking parents, retirees).

Mall Intercept Interviews

Personal interviews conducted in shopping malls are referred to as mall

intercept interviews, or shopping center sampling.

Typically intercept shoppers at a central point within the mall or at an entrance.

Costs are lower.

No travel is required.

Can be conducted quickly.

A major problem is that individuals usually are in a hurry to shop, so refusal is

high (i.e., around 50%).

More conducted than door-to-door interviews.

Researcher must recognize that he or she is not looking for a representative

sample of the total population.

Can show large, heavy, or immobile visual materials (e.g., television

commercial).

Can give an individual a product to take home to use and contact later by phone.

Appropriate when a consumer durable product must be demonstrated.

Global Considerations

Willingness to participate in a personal interview varies dramatically around the world.

In many Middle Eastern countries, women would never consent to be

interviewed by a man.

In some countries, discussing grooming behavior and personal-care products with

a stranger would be highly offensive.

Norms about appropriate business conduct also influence businesspeople’s

willingness to provide information to interviewers (e.g., Japanese managers will

not conduct interviews during business hours due to responsibility to oversee

their employees while on the job).

III. TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS

The mainstay of commercial survey research for decades.

Quality of data may be comparable to that of data collected in personal interviews.

Respondents are more willing to provide detailed and reliable information on a variety of

personal topics than they are with personal interviews.

Cellphone adoption and no-call laws limit the ability to generate a representative sample.

Mobile Phone Interviews

In the U.S., no telemarketing can be directed toward mobile phone numbers by law.

Respondents have to “opt-in” before their phone number would be made available for

such calls.

The recipient of a mobile phone call is even more likely to be distracted than the recipient

of a home or office call.

The area codes for mobile phones are not necessarily tied to geography, so a researcher

may be unable to determine whether or not a respondent fits into the desired geographic

sampling population simply by taking note of the area code.

The phones have varying abilities for automated responses and differing keypads.

Phone Interview Characteristics

Speed – hundreds of interviews can be collected literally overnight.

Cost – estimated to be less than 25 percent of the cost of door-to-door personal

interviews; travel time and costs are eliminated.

Absence of Face-to-Face Contact – respondents may answer embarrassing or

confidential questions more willingly, but interviewer and respondent cannot see each

other, resulting in a greater tendency for interviewers to record no answers and

incomplete answers than in personal interviews.

Cooperation

Telephone response rates have been falling due to caller ID and answering

machines used to screen calls as well as more phone lines dedicated to fax

machines and computers.

It is illegal in the U.S. for researchers to contact anyone who would have to pay

for the call (i.e., cellphones).

Incentives to Respond – respondents should receive some incentive to respond.

Representative Samples – practical difficulties complicate obtaining representative

samples based on listings in the telephone book.

Well over 95% of U.S households have land-line telephones.

People without phones are likely to be poor, aged, rural, or living in the South.

People have unlisted phone numbers for two reasons:

they have moved recently

by choice

Random digit dialing eliminates the counting of names in a list and subjectively

determining whether a directory listing is a business, institution, or legitimate

household.

Callbacks – an unanswered call, a busy signal, or a respondent who is not at home

requires a callback, which is much easier to make than callbacks in personal interviews.

Limited Duration – respondents who run out of patience can hang up.

Lack of Visual Medium – medium is not appropriate if need to show respondent

something (i.e., package, advertisement) or if using certain attitude scales and measuring

instruments (i.e., semantic differential that requires the respondent to see a graphic scale).

Central Location Interviewing

Central location interviewing allows firms to hire a staff of professional interviewers

and to supervise and control the quality of interviewing more effectively.

Can benefit from cost economies.

Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing

Computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) allows response to telephone

interviews to be entered directly into the computer by the interviewer.

Telephone management systems select phone numbers, dial the numbers automatically,

and perform other labor-saving functions, such as generating an automatic callback

schedule.

Researchers can request daily status reports on the number of completed interviews

relative to quotas.

Interviews can also be conducted by a pre-recorded voice with the respondent answering

by punching buttons on the phone.

Computerized Voice-Activated Telephone Interview

Allows researchers to conduct telephone interviews without human interviewers.

Works best with very short, simple questionnaires.

Entire data collection process can be automated because a recorded voice is used to both

ask the questions and record answers.

Global Considerations

Different cultures have different norms about proper telephone behavior.

Latin American businesspeople will not open up to strangers on the telephone.

Japanese respondents consider it ill-mannered if telephone interviews last more

than 20 minutes.