Further Observations on the Recruitment and Training of Interviewers in Other Cultures.

In the summer of 1952 the "Public Opinion Quarterly" carried the author's article on "Interviewer Training in Another Culture." Since then he has trained interviewers for surveys on the social and psychological factors affecting human fertility of lower class groups in Puerto Rico and Jamaica. In this article, he describes some of the techniques used and evaluates the effectiveness of these devices. The present paper draws together the experiences of the recruitment and training processes in Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Surveys of attitudes toward birth control and fertility in the underdeveloped area pose several problems for the interviewer trainer such as locating and screening of competent candidates, motivating them to perform arduous interviewing duties on a subject which might be considered indelicate or even distasteful, techniques by which interviewing skills can best be communicated in individuals of another culture. It is possible that the extensive training given contributes more to building up motivation and morale than in the development of training skills themselves.