1. AN EXPERIMENT ON RE-INTERVIEWING FOR ADOPTION DATES.
- Author
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Makarczyk, Waclaw
- Subjects
- *
INTERVIEWING , *RESEARCH methodology , *SOCIOLOGY methodology , *SOCIAL psychology - Abstract
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]
- Published
- 1970
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