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The article focuses on the interaction recorder, an electronic punched paper tape unit for recording speech behavior during interviews. The study of verbal interview behavior results in the accumulation of (and the ultimate necessity to process) large quantities of data. This is true whether the investigative focus is on such global phenomena as personality traits or personality change, analysis of the content or themes expressed, or on such structural characteristics as frequency and durations of single units of speech and silence. With both the Chapple Interaction Chronograph and the Interaction Recorder, a trained observer is needed in order to record the interview interaction.

The dates of adoption of innovations constitute a basis for the analysis of innovativeness which is the main dependent variable in most diffusion studies. Rural sociologists, as a rule, ask farmers to recall when they adopted a new practice. The question arises, what is the reliability of data obtained with the aid of such a method? In this paper the findings of an experiment are reported in which respondents were re-interviewed after some weeks as to the dates of adoption. The repeatability of findings, i.e. the consistency in answers reporting the adoption dates, was accepted as one of the possible criteria of reliability. Younger age and a higher level of education tend to be positively correlated with the consistency of replies. The degree of the consistency in the answers is also affected by the nature of the given innovation. The general picture of the diffusion process, as based on the data obtained at the first and at the second stage of interviewing, is fairly similar. It is observed that even if data on irtnovativeness are biased on an individual level, they are not necessarily biased at a village level, at least not in the same proportion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to show how a new nonparametric method, manifest structure analysis, may be used for a quantitative analysis of case histories or very general information files, it is well known that mature adults do not like to take most conventional tests. These same adults, however, generally show far less antagonism to interviews, the taking of a case history, etc. In the present study, information files were compiled for management personnel in an industrial organization, a manifest structure analysis of these information files was made, and a test or scale constructed for use in estimating the actual value of employees to management.