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The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) have been carried out in over 90 countries since 1984, as interviewer administered household surveys conducted initially by paper and pencil interviews (PAPI). Computer assisted personal interviews (CAPI) were introduced in the 2004 Peru DHS, and since then numerous countries have also switched. However, DHS randomized mode comparisons have been limited. The 2018 Sixth Turkey DHS was conducted using CAPI but allocated one household from 21 in each of 754 clusters to PAPI. This analysis examines a wide range of potential differences between modes: interviewer attitudes toward modes; response rates, underreporting and misreporting of persons or events, number of selections to “check all that applies” questions, respondents' attitudes towards modes reflected by responses to sensitive questions, satisficing behavior such as age heaping, straight-line response patterns, and use of don’t know options; and some operational aspects of modes such as retrospective monthly contraceptive prevalence rates, presence of others during interview, and interview length. Findings show that, despite strong interviewer CAPI preference, CAPI and PAPI were on average almost identical in terms of responses. CAPI took 11 min less (total duration of 33 min). Analysis of retrospective monthly contraception use indicated potential underreporting by CAPI for past use, an issue highlighted before in DHS literature. Overall, the switch to computer technology in DHS surveys does not appear to change estimates or levels of nonsampling errors, although some differences with respect to PAPI mode may need DHS designer attention.

Background The last decade has highlighted how menstrual hygiene management (MHM) is a public health issue because of its link to health, education, social justice and human rights. However, measurement of MHM has not been validated across different studies. The objective of this manuscript was to test the psychometric properties of a MHM scale. Methods An embedded mixed-method design was utilized. The girls (age 12–19) were from three districts of Uttar Pradesh (Mirzapur, Jaunpur and Sonebhadra), India. A total of 2212 girls participated in the structured questionnaire. Trained interviewers collected the data on tablets using computer assisted personal interviewing. A total of 36 FGDs were conducted among 309 girls between. Trained moderators collected the data. Factor analysis and thematic analysis was conducted to analyze and triangulate the data. Results More than 90% of the girls were from a marginalized caste. Overall, 28% of the girls practiced all six MHM behaviors adequately. The factor analysis found five separate constructs corresponding to menstrual health and hygiene management (MHHM) with a variation of 84% and eigenvalue of 1.7. Preparation of clean absorbent, storage of clean absorbent, frequency of changing and disposal loaded separately, corresponding to menstrual health. Privacy to change and hygiene loaded together (eigenvalue 0.91 each), corresponding to hygiene management. An underlying theme from the FGD was menstruation as a taboo and lack of privacy for changing the absorbent. Conclusion MHM is multi-dimensional construct comprising of behaviors which were time-bound by menstruation (menstrual health) and behaviors not time-bound by menstruation (hygiene management). Based on these results, the author recommends that MHHM is used as an acronym in the future and proposes a revised definition for MHHM.

Purpose The purpose of the study was to pilot test the English and Urdu version of the Colon Cancer Screening Behaviours Survey among South Asians in Canada. The first objective was to evaluate feasibility of administration, data collection using computer assisted personal interviewing software on a tablet, and response burden. The second objective was to examine the prevalence of colorectal cancer screening among South Asians and evaluate the psychometric properties of sub-scales in the survey. Methods Purposive, network and snowball sampling were used to recruit participants for this cross-sectional study. Interviewer-led administration of the Colon Cancer Screening Behaviours Survey was conducted across two cities in Ontario, Canada. Qualitative data analysis assessed feasibility; and sub-scales were evaluated through principal component analysis, item-scale correlations, and construct validity using multiple linear and logistic regression. Results A total of 328 South Asians participated, 47% Urdu speaking, and 53% English speaking. There was a 23% refusal rate to participate. Feasibility identified: (1) successful recruitment despite reasons for refusal; (2) problematic items and response categories; and (3) computer/tablet limitations. Principal component analysis identified 14 components that explained 68.7% of total variance; 34 items were retained after factor analysis. Internal consistency of 4 scales ranged from 0.79–0.91. There were significant differences in perceived barriers scale scores (− 12.21; 95% CI, − 17.13 to - 7.28; p p = 0.783). Conclusions Recruitment and data collection methods are feasible among South Asians if functionality of the tablet selected is improved. The Colon Cancer Screening Behaviours Survey was finalized and retained items in sub-scales demonstrated good psychometric properties to assess behaviours for colon cancer screening among South Asians in Canada. The interviewer-led survey may be used by public health, cancer care or other health practitioners to describe or predict colorectal cancer screening behaviours among South Asians in similar settings or adapted and tested in other contexts.

The World Bank is an international leader in the methodology and implementation of household surveys, working in close partnership with national statistics offices (NSOs) around the world. This guidebook is a consolidation of field-tested best practices to implement, improve, and modernize nationally representative multi-topic household surveys for monitoring welfare and poverty. Offered as a reference guide for task team leaders (TTLs) within the World Bank, the guidebook is intended as a powerful tool for any survey practitioners (such as NSOs, development partners, educators, researchers, and students) implementing household surveys in low- and middle-income countries. This guidebook starts with survey design, the first step in any survey undertaking, with careful attention given to minimizing non-sampling errors. Subsequent sections are sampling; questionnaire modules, which form the core of this guidebook; followed by geographic information systems (GIS); computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI); and finally, documentation and dissemination of the resulting data.

Labor statistics provide essential information for macroeconomic planning and policy formulation on employment creation, vocational training, income generation, and poverty reduction. A clear understanding and accurate comparability of labor indicators are therefore crucial for promoting efficient policies across countries and require the consistent application of international standards in collecting employment data in multi-topic household surveys. This Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) guidebook provides informed advice to statisticians and survey practitioners on the accurate measurement of employment and work in accordance with standards of the 19th International conference of labor statisticians (ICLS) and in the context of multi-topic household surveys.

This paper examines the design and the process used to carry out the China Fertility Survey 2017, a national representative survey that collected data on fertility desire, childbearing behavior, the use of childbearing services, and the determinants of childbearing behavior. The sampling method adopted was three-stage stratified probabilities proportional to size (PPS), and survey implementation made use of Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). CAPI played a significant role in survey design, last-stage sampling, interviewer training, face-to-face interviews, and questionnaire review and quality control. The survey results were compared with relevant data in the Integrated Management Information System for Population and Family Planning to check consistency. Ex post facto weighting was applied to correct sample structure bias. The process used to acquire accurate personal information is summarized. Suggestions based on consideration of sampling frame distortion by population mobility and other factors are put forward in the hope of improving similar sampling surveys in the future.

Statistics Indonesia, known in Indonesia as Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS), has conducted a series of trials to utilize Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) in a census or survey. However, CAPI costs a lot of money to procure and maintain the device. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) principle offers cost opportunity to device management. In the practice of BYOD in BPS, a device that has good performance is required, because some devices aren’t capable of running CAPI properly. Yet, in BPS there is no standard value to qualify mobile devices to be used in census or survey. Therefore, it is necessary to review what kind of device is suitable for using CAPI. This study utilized CAPI used in a student’s field study as a case study reference. Initially, researchers develop benchmark applications as a tool for feasibility. Furthermore, developed application is tested on a certain base device to calculate the scores to be used as the standard values.

Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) is a well-known methodology in the development of social surveys. In this work, CAPI is used to guide the flow of a questionnaire aiming for the acquisition of data and information fundamental to optimise a photovoltaic (PV) design. The questionnaire is implemented in an app, developed in the frame of the PV SPREAD project, which is aimed to support the supplier/designer of PV plants during all the stages of its development. To demonstrate how different choices of a client, specified during the interview with the designer, will have distinct economic results, two configurations are presented. In the first, the system is_allowed to determine and use the optimum inclination angle of the modules, while in the second a low angle is selected by the client, to comply with aesthetic restrictions. The first configuration improves naturally the internal rate of return of the investment, as this is the optimising cost function, but the system allows comparing both ones. The CAPI methodology and its use in the context of PV design show to be a relevant tool to support designers and to provide more informed investments to clients.

We use a randomized field experiment to estimate the effect of computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) on interview duration, number of errors, respondent perceptions, and cost. During Quarter 3 of the 2017 Labor Force Survey data collection for Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, 15 households were randomly selected and interviewed using pencil-and-paper interviewing (PAPI), while another 15 households were randomly selected and interviewed using CAPI within each of a total of 180 sample enumeration areas. On average, CAPI interviews lasted 9.4 minutes less and had 0.8 less errors per questionnaire relative to PAPI. Respondents were more likely to perceive interview duration as long or very long when the enumerator was female or educated to college level or above, which is contrary to our experimental findings. Finally, the break-even number of interviews that make CAPI cost-effective is 1,769, which is lower than prior estimates and reflects the rapidly decreasing cost of technology.

Asking probing questions via web probing has recently been advocated as a promising method for evaluating survey questions. In comparison to standard face-to-face (f2f) cognitive interviewing, the increasing availability of internet non-probability panels allows for recruiting respondents in a quicker and more cost-effective way and a realization of larger sample sizes. In the present study, we examine whether web probing is a potential alternative to standard cognitive interviewing, in particular: Does web probing produce similar results as f2f cognitive interviewing with regard to the problems detected and the item revisions suggested? The study compares the findings of 508 respondents drawn from a non-probability online panel who completed an online survey including four items from the International Social Survey Programme 2013 and 2014 with the results obtained via f2f cognitive interviewing with 20 participants. Findings indicate that web probing and cognitive interviewing detect very similar problems and lead to the same suggestions for item revisions. However, web probing itself has some limitations. Practical implementations and directions for future research are discussed.

Data collection plays an important role in census and survey for statistical work. Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) Indonesia spent a lot of effort on human resources, budget, and time and complexity management in order to have valid data. Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) is a system which support data collection process more simple and efficient. It important to measure the user acceptance of CAPI in statistical work.

Worldwide forced displacement is increasing the demand in global health programming for health-related data collection methods that cut across broad ethnic and cultural differences. An interdisciplinary team leveraged consumer-based tablet technology to develop a novel survey application addressing barriers in literacy, numeracy, and respondent privacy in resettled refugee communities. The computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) innovation was piloted among 65 resettled refugees in Middle Tennessee, in the context of a survey of psychosocial wellbeing. Results showed the tablet-based CAPI application was an affordable, versatile survey method that increased accessibility without sacrificing respondent privacy.

Standardized interviewing, now practiced in all sectors of the survey industry, sometimes causes communication problems between the interviewer and the respondent. This paper presents qualitative data collected from computerassisted telephone interviewing (CATI) interviewers and CATI studio managers. It shows how a poor interview script design and clients’ inflexibility can lead interviewers to deviate from the script and to switch to uncontrolled conversational interviewing.

Summary Several studies have shown that conversational interviewing (CI) reduces response bias for complex survey questions relative to standardized interviewing. However, no studies have addressed concerns about whether CI increases intra-interviewer correlations (IICs) in the responses collected, which could negatively impact the overall quality of survey estimates. The paper reports the results of an experimental investigation addressing this question in a national face-to-face survey. We find that CI improves response quality, as in previous studies, without substantially or frequently increasing IICs. Furthermore, any slight increases in the IICs do not offset the reduced bias in survey estimates engendered by CI.

This chapter deals with the subject of pre-employment interviewing which helps employers in knowing about candidates who may not be a perfect match for the job and may become a liability for the company in future. A pre-employment interview utilizes several techniques to ascertain information from the applicants and allow the employer to select the most qualified applicant. During a pre-employment interview, the best information comes from the applicants themselves. To get information, the interviewer must plant seeds for truth and try to develop a rapport with the applicants. Some of the methods that can help interviewer in eliciting truthful information from a candidate include asking assumptive questions, exaggerating the problem, and ask projective questions. Attitudinal and projective questions, as in the forensic assessment interview, give us an idea of the person's background. An interviewer can also ask questions about the ability of a candidate to perform specific job functions and may, with certain limitations, ask an individual with a disability to describe or demonstrate how she or he would perform these functions.

This chapter discusses the precautions that an interviewer should take while interviewing children and mentally challenged individuals in association with a case. There are many case situations that will necessitate an investigative interview of a child or mentally challenged individual. These interviews will fall generally into two categories: one in which the interviewee is a suspect in a crime, and one in which the interviewee is an alleged victim of a crime. In the latter, these interviews often are the result of a claim of sexual abuse or maltreatment where a child or mentally impaired individual is the victim. When interviewing someone from this population of suspects, the investigator must consider the mental development of the interviewee when assessing his answers. The manner in which questions are asked is critical, especially when attempting to collect accurate information from an alleged victim. The interviewer must recognize that the language development and resources of these individuals have an effect on their ability to give a statement, as well as their ability to encode and recall an experience. The use of props and drawings during the forensic interview may also create false information. Therefore, before the child completes his initial statement during the Forensic Interview process, it is recommended that the interviewer not use props and drawings, because the added information that results from this process often is tainted, and it is not possible to differentiate between true facts and fictitious facts.

The choice of payment instrument, which is used every day to make life easier, comprises one of the consumer financial decisions influenced by several factors. To investigate when, where, and for what amount customers use different forms of payment an interview of statistically representative group of 1005 consumers from all over Poland have been realized, in the first quarter of 2019 with the use of the computer assisted personal interviewing method. The data gives a unique combination of information on consumers payment choice and detailed information about demographics, income, and consumer preferences within a nationally representative consumer survey. Within this article statistical analyzes of the influence of transaction factors on consumer choice of payment have been performed together with a first attempt to employ a data-mining method known as Random Forests for predict the choices that those consumers make regarding the method of payment. The results revealed the complexity and diversity of factors influencing consumer choices. The findings show that, despite the development of innovative forms of payment, traditional forms, especially cash, still have a strong position. Notwithstanding among the customers' personal traits, financial knowledge is one of the most important determinants of their payment choices. These results are an important step toward a predictive model of consumer choice. Additionally presented findings on consumers’ payment behavior can guide policy formulation and strategic decision-making of central banks and stakeholders, and thereby contribute toward improving the efficiency of the payment system in Poland as a whole.

Determining which verbal behaviors of interviewers and respondents are dependent on one another is a complex problem that can be facilitated via data-mining approaches. Data are derived from the interviews of 153 respondents of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) who were interviewed about their life-course histories. Behavioral sequences of interviewer-respondent interactions that were most predictive of respondents spontaneously using parallel, timing, duration, and sequential retrieval strategies in their generation of answers were examined. We also examined which behavioral sequences were predictive of retrospective reporting data quality as shown by correspondence between calendar responses with responses collected in prior waves of the PSID. The verbal behaviors of immediately preceding interviewer and respondent turns of speech were assessed in terms of their co-occurrence with each respondent retrieval strategy. Interviewers’ use of parallel probes is associated with poorer data quality, whereas interviewers’ use of timing and duration probes, especially in tandem, is associated with better data quality. Respondents’ use of timing and duration strategies is also associated with better data quality and both strategies are facilitated by interviewer timing probes. Data mining alongside regression techniques is valuable to examine which interviewer-respondent interactions will benefit data quality.

Previous research shows that interviewers to some extent fail to expend the effort that is needed to collect high-quality survey data. We extend the idea of interviewer satisficing to a related task, in which the interviewers themselves answer survey questions. We hypothesize that interviewers who self-administer the questionnaire in a careless manner, also will not apply themselves fully to the task of administering survey interviews. Based on interviewer and respondent data from the sixth round of the European Social Survey in Belgium, we find support for some of the hypothesized associations between (suboptimal) response characteristics of interviewers in the “task as respondent” and the same (suboptimal) response characteristics recorded for their respondents, specifically with regard to interview speed, multiple response, and item nonresponse to the household income question. ispartof: Field Methods vol:29 issue:2 pages:140-153 status: published

Purpose The purpose of this paper was to review the effectiveness of telephone interviewing for capturing data and to consider in particular the challenges faced by telephone interviewers when capturing information about market segments. Design/methodology/approach The platform for this methodological critique was a market segment analysis commissioned by Sport Wales which involved a series of 85 telephone interviews completed during 2010. Two focus groups involving the six interviewers involved in the study were convened to reflect on the researchers’ experiences and the implications for business and management research. Findings There are three principal sets of findings. First, although telephone interviewing is generally a cost-effective data collection method, it is important to consider both the actual costs (i.e. time spent planning and conducting interviews) as well as the opportunity costs (i.e. missed appointments, “chasing participants”). Second, researchers need to be sensitised to and sensitive to the demographic characteristics of telephone interviewees (insofar as these are knowable) because responses are influenced by them. Third, the anonymity of telephone interviews may be more conducive for discussing sensitive issues than face-to-face interactions. Originality/value The present study adds to this modest body of literature on the implementation of telephone interviewing as a research technique of business and management. It provides valuable methodological background detail about the intricate, personal experiences of researchers undertaking this method “at a distance” and without visual cues, and makes explicit the challenges of telephone interviewing for the purposes of data capture.

Regular supervision influences interviewing quality with child witnesses. It is unclear, however, whether interviewers recognize the importance of supervision, and how often they access it. The present study surveyed 39 New Zealand Specialist Child Witness Interviewers (otherwise known as forensic interviewers), and examined: (a) their access to, and, perceptions of supervision, and (b) factors that may influence their access to, and, perceptions of supervision. We identified 26 interviewers who received some form of practice-focused supervision. Within this group, there was considerable variability in terms of how often they accessed supervision, and, their ratings of how satisfied they were with their access to, and the content of, supervision. Furthermore, some of those who did participate in supervision felt they did not actually receive specific input about their interviewing. Thus, an important area for investment in promoting good interviewing practice is developing effective approaches to facilitate interviewers engaging in regular practice-focused supervision, perhaps, at least in part, by addressing some of systemic barriers identified (e.g. limited financial support, time constraints, lack of experienced supervisors, lack of understanding/support from managerial staff and geographical isolation).

Purpose Recent advances in technology have raised a potentially promising service to overcome difficulties associated with remote witnesses: live video-feed interviews. The efficacy of this mode of interviewing, however, lacks empirical evidence, particularly with children in an investigative context. Methods This study explored the effects of live video-feed compared to face-to-face interviewing on the memory reports of 100 children (aged 5–12). Children participated in an innocuous event and were interviewed 1–2 days later by experienced interviewers. Results Analyses indicated that live video-feed interviewing was just as effective as face-to-face interviewing in terms of the accuracy and informativeness of children's accounts. Video-feed interviews, however, required a higher number of clarification prompts compared to face-to-face interviews. These findings were not influenced by children's familiarity with technology. Conclusions An initial test of live video-feed interviewing indicates it is a safe and effective method for interviewing children about an innocuous event.

The effect of a witness interviewing training program on interviewing performance in actual investigations was examined. Eighty interviews, conducted by police officers in one Canadian organization, were coded for the presence of 38 desirable practices. Results showed that, in general, trained interviewers outperformed their untrained counterparts. Specifically, there was a large improvement in engage and explain behaviors (d = 1.65), a moderate improvement in account behaviors (d = 0.54), and a large improvement in closure behaviors (d = 0.90). Trained interviewers also used more open-ended questions and fewer leading questions. The implications of the findings for transferring interviewing skills from the classroom to the field are discussed.

Objectives To assess the incidence of maternal near miss and contributing factors among hospitals in Ethiopia. The study also assessed the ability of hospitals to provide signal functions of emergency obstetric care and its regional distribution. Design A national dataset accessed from the Ethiopian Public Health Institute were analysed to assess the incidence of maternal near miss and mortality index among women admitted to hospitals with obstetric complications. Setting Maternal health indicators including obstetric complications, maternal deaths and births conducted at all hospitals available in Ethiopia were included. Measurements The maternal near miss incidence ratio, which is the number of near miss cases per 1,000 live births, and the mortality index were presented descriptively. Chi-squared test at p value ≤ 0.05 was used to assess the presence of significant regional differences of the provision of signal functions of emergency obstetric care. Results In 2015, 78,195 women were admitted to hospitals with both the direct (68,002) and indirect (10,193) causes of maternal mortality. Of women who experienced the direct causes, 435 died which means there were 67,567 maternal near miss cases. In the same year, 323,824 live births were reported in hospitals, making the crude maternal near miss incidence ratio of 20.8% (9.1-38.8%) and mortality index of 0.64% (435/68,002) for the direct causes of maternal mortality. A significant regional variation was observed with regard to incidence of maternal near miss, mortality index and the provision of signal functions of emergency obstetric care. Administration of parenteral antibiotics was the most frequently practiced signal function of emergency obstetric care while blood transfusion was the least provided signal function. Conclusions In Ethiopian hospitals, the incidence of maternal near miss was unacceptably high. A significant regional variation was detected with regard to maternal near miss incidence ratio, mortality index and the provision of signal functions of emergency obstetric care. The Ethiopian government needs to work on equitable resource distribution and quality improvement initiatives in order to close the detected regional variations. Implications for practice The Ethiopian government needs to practice evidence-based maternal health strategies, including capacity building of the regional hospitals in order to improve the distribution of resources and quality of maternal health.

Refusals and noncontacts generally make up the two most important components of unit nonresponse. It is important to separate noncontacts from refusals when examining survey participation, a simultaneously analysis of both components seems relevant when assessing interviewer effects. Using data from a survey of the German Youth Institute Munich, this paper presents an application of the hierarchical regression model, which offers a comprehensive way of analyzing the simultaneous effects of specific interviewer and respondent characteristics. The results provide evidence that the participation on panel surveys is subject to interviewer, respondent as well as area characteristics.

Poverty means more than having a low income and includes exclusion from a minimally accepted way of life. It is now common practice in Europe to measure progress against poverty in terms of low income, material deprivation rates and some combination of both. This makes material deprivation indicators, and their selection, highly significant in its own right. The ‘consensual poverty’ approach is to identify deprivation items which a majority of the population agree constitute life’s basic necessities, accepting that these items will need revised over time to reflect social change. Traditionally, this has been carried out in the UK through specialised poverty surveys using a Sort Card (SC) technique. Based on analysis of a 2012 omnibus survey, and discussions with three interviewers, this article examines how perception of necessities is affected by mode of administration – SC and Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). More CAPI respondents scored deprivation items necessary. Greatest disparities are in material items where 25 out of 32 items were significantly higher via CAPI. Closer agreement is found in social participation with 3 out of 14 activities significantly different. Consensus is higher on children’s material deprivation. We consider influencing variables which could account for the disparities and believe that the SC method produces a more considered response. However, in light of technological advances, we question how long the SC method will remain socially acceptable. This paper concludes that the CAPI method can be easily modified without compromising the benefits of the SC method in capturing thoughtful responses.

We use matched survey and administrative data to study interviewer and interview related determinants of misreporting on welfare receipt in interviews. In our data, 12.2 % of German welfare recipients underreport benefit receipt. We find that underreporting is more likely in formal and standardized interviews compared to those with a more conversational character. Further, low interviewer education and matched interviewer–respondent characteristics with respect to immigration and education are associated with higher reporting quality.

ObjectiveTo capture a baseline of public attitudes in Northern Ireland towards data linkage and sharing which can then be reassessed at intervals to measure changes in public trust and understanding. ApproachThe Life and Times Survey is an annual survey of the attitudes of the public of Northern Ireland to a wide range of social issues. Questions within the survey are grouped into modules, the range of which varies from year to year. In the 2015 survey a module of questions and vignettes was added relating to data sharing. These questions were derived mainly from the ‘Dialogue on Data’ report from ESRC and Ipsos Mori in 2014 and related to the key theme of ‘Public understanding and views of sharing of health data, data linking, and relevant safeguards’. Each year a systematic random sample of addresses is used to identify selected respondents. Interviews are then carried out face to face in the respondent’s home via Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing. A self-completion questionnaire is also included at the end of the interview. It is intended that the module relating to public attitudes towards data linkage and sharing are repeated at intervals, possibly every 3 to 5 years, to assess changes in levels of public trust and understanding. Results1200 respondents completed the NILTS between October and December 2015. The dataset is currently being cleaned and will be ready for analysis in April 2016. It is intended that the results of the survey be presented at the IPDLN conference. ConclusionA baseline measure of public attitudes towards data linkage and sharing has been made in Northern Ireland. Repeating this assessment at intervals will make it possible to measure changes in the levels of public trust and understating over time.

Background: The intended meaning behind responses to standard questions posed in large-scale health surveys are not always well understood. Systematic follow-up studies, particularly those which pose a few repeated questions followed by open-ended discussions, are well positioned to gauge stability and consistency of data and to shed light on the intended meaning behind survey responses. Such follow-up studies require extensive coordination and face challenges in protecting respondent confidentiality during the process of recontacting and reinterviewing participants. Objectives: We describe practical field strategies for undertaking a mixed methods follow-up study during a large-scale health survey. Methods: The study was designed as a mixed methods follow-up study embedded within the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS). The study was implemented in 13 clusters. Android tablets were used to import reference data from the parent survey and to administer the questionnaire, which asked a mixture of closed- and open-ended questions on reproductive intentions, decision-making, and family planning. Results: Despite a number of obstacles related to recontacting respondents and concern about respondent fatigue, over 92 percent of the selected sub-sample were successfully recontacted and reinterviewed; all consented to audio recording. A confidential linkage between GDHS data, follow-up tablet data, and audio transcripts was successfully created for the purpose of analysis. Conclusions: We summarize the challenges in follow-up study design, including ethical considerations, sample size, auditing, filtering, successful use of tablets, and share lessons learned for future such follow-up surveys.

In Germany, the respondents who had participated in the 2012 survey of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) were re-approached for the panel study PIAAC-L. PIAAC-L aims at investigating the longitudinal effects of skill outcomes over the life course and the development of the key skills assessed in PIAAC. Moreover, additional and alternative background information was collected and analyzed within PIAAC-L. PIAAC-L consists of three follow-up waves to the initial PIAAC 2012 survey. The present paper describes the rationale for PIAAC-L and the benefits of conducting a longitudinal PIAAC follow-up study in Germany. In addition, we outline the general design of PIAAC-L and the specific design of the three waves of data collection. Finally, we address the analytic potential of PIAAC-L data set and its availability to the scientific community.

Validating questionnaires for social pharmacy research with smaller sample sizes can be unnecessarily time-consuming and costly, a solution to this is cognitive interviewing with 2 interviews per iteration. This paper shows how cognitive interviewing with pairs of interviews per iteration of the questionnaire can be used to identify overt and covert issues with comprehension, retrieval, judgment and response experienced by respondents when attempting to answer a question or navigate around the questionnaire. When used during questionnaire development in small scale social pharmacy research studies cognitive interviewing can reduce both respondent burden and response error and should result in more reliable survey results. The process of cognitive interviewing is illustrated by a case study from the development of the Perspectives on Progesterone questionnaire.

Video interviews are increasing in popularity and are considered an efficient and effective selection tool. As companies start implementing this selection tool, it is important to understand interviewee perceptions of video interviewing and its impact on the overall effectiveness of the selection process. This study explores the pros and cons of video interviewing from the perspectives of 151 hospitality management students from the Southern United States that are currently seeking career placement upon graduation. Participants were asked to go through an online video interview, following which they completed a survey questionnaire. Qualitative findings indicated that some factors that lead to favorableness of video interviewing were comfort, convenience, and saving on resources (money and time), while some factors that resulted in unfavorableness were its impersonal nature, lack of feedback, and technological glitches. Quantitative findings indicated that the overall favorability of video interviewing was low but fairness was high. Based on the findings, recommendations were provided to improve the effectiveness and acceptance of this selection tool.

The investigation of multiple sources in household water management is considered overly complicated and time consuming using paper and pen interviewing (PAPI). We assess the advantages of computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) in Pacific Island Countries (PICs). We adapted an existing PAPI survey on multiple water sources and expanded it to incorporate location of water use and the impacts of extreme weather events using SurveyCTO on Android tablets. We then compared the efficiency and accuracy of data collection using the PAPI version (n = 44) with the CAPI version (n = 291), including interview duration, error rate and trends in interview duration with enumerator experience. CAPI surveys facilitated high-quality data collection and were an average of 15.2 min faster than PAPI. CAPI survey duration decreased by 0.55% per survey delivered (p < 0.0001), whilst embedded skip patterns and answer lists lowered data entry error rates, relative to PAPI (p < 0.0001). Large-scale household surveys commonly used in global monitoring and evaluation do not differentiate multiple water sources and uses. CAPI equips water researchers with a quick and reliable tool to address these knowledge gaps and advance our understanding of development research priorities.

Cognitive interviewing and usability testing share techniques and have similar origins in cognitive psychology. However, cognitive interviewing often precedes usability testing in survey pretesting, and each test yields different results. While it seems that administering the tests concurrently saves time and effort, there is little evidence that researchers test concurrently. In this study, we coordinated concurrent cognitive and usability testing. By concurrently testing the same survey with different participants (respondents and interviewers), issues with question wording and design were more efficiently addressed, leading to an improved questionnaire for both respondents and interviewers.

In surveys carried out by interviewers trained according to the key principle of standardized interviewing it is assumed that the interviewer has only limited impact on the time a respondent needs to answer questions. In the paper the effects of interviewers and respondent characteristics on interview speed are analyzed simultaneously by means of a three-level random coefficient model. Data from the fifth round of the European Social Survey (ESS) are used. In twelve participating countries (CAPI) timers were implemented at several places in the questionnaire. Based on this time information the interview speed (number of questions asked per minute) was measured for each respondent during five modules of the questionnaire. The results support most of the expectations concerning the effects of the respondent characteristics. However, the results also indicate that, for all countries, interviewers strongly determine the interview speed and that interview length is not a simple linear function of the number of questions in a questionnaire.

Much has been written on the respondent’s perspective but fewer studies have recognized that “perspectives other than those drawn from the discipline come into play for the interviewer” (Warren in Handbook of interview research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2002: 84). In the article we show that the interviewer uses different strategies of identity management and different standpoints as resources to accomplish and account for one of the main interviewer’s duties, namely to achieve an “understanding of the world from the subjects’ points of view” (Kvale in Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1996: 1). We examine instances in which the interviewer displays a “neutral” posture, showing adherence to her institutional identity, and instances in which she positions herself as an “embodied subject,” disclosing her personal involvement, stepping out of the role and displaying an identity and a standpoint in common with that of the interviewee. We show how such strategies of identity management (1) prompt either identification or divergence of viewpoints between the interviewer and the interviewees; (2) affect the degree of intimacy among participants and spontaneity in conversation. By means of these two strategies, we discuss, the interviewer accomplishes and accounts for her professional ability to understand the interviewees’ standpoints. In particular such strategies are two ways of accounting for an ethical relationship with the interviewees, which, respectively, emphasize either the impartiality or the reciprocity in understanding. Our purpose is not to suggest that one strategy is to be preferred on the other, but, rather, to illustrate how both the “neutral” and the “embodied” posture are situated practices through which the interviewer attempts to preserve the respondents’ viewpoint on the narrated events.

This article focuses on a novel use of cognitive interviewing as a follow-up rather than as a pretesting methodology to explore mode effects. Respondent from a quantitative mixed-mode experiment took part in cognitive interviews where questions were administered face to face, by telephone, and by web, followed by a retrospective think-aloud. The focus of the think-aloud (used in combination with some prescripted probes) was not on what respondents understood by certain words or answer categories but on how they had answered questions in the different data collection modes. This article discusses the methods used in these mixed-mode cognitive interviews (which involved an element of mode mimicking) and how the interviews differed from standard cognitive interviewing for question testing. The benefits and limitations of our approach are discussed as well as lessons learned for using cognitive interviewing to explore patterns observed in survey data.