Do Interviewers' Voice Characteristics Influence Cooperation Rates in Telephone Surveys?

Maximising response rates in household telephone surveys

BACKGROUND Epidemiological and other studies that require participants to respond by completing a questionnaire face the growing threat of non-response. Response rates to household telephone surveys are diminishing because of changes in telecommunications, marketing and culture. Accordingly, updated information is required about the rate of telephone listing in directories and optimal strategie...

A comparison of response characteristics from web and telephone surveys

Increasingly, web surveys are being used to supplement telephone survey data and some predict internet methods will one day replace telephone interviews as the primary method for surveying general populations. Despite these trends, few studies have systematically compared response differences between the two methods. This article describes a study in which both telephone and web surveys were us...

Telephone Interviewer Voice Characteristics and the Survey Participation Decision

Hanging by a Thread: The Telephone Interviewers Tell (Their) Story

From behaviourism to cognitivism and to constructivism the role attributed to the interviewer changes but remains central. Specific methodological studies have shown that during the interview it is rare to find the strict application of the behaviouristic dictates which, still today, impose a passive role on the interviewer; often, the interviewers act in a non-programmed manner and reformulate...

Do Interviewers Sell Themselves Short? The Effects of Selling Orientation on Interviewers’ Judgments

Drawing on alternative perspectives about the automaticity of dispositional judgments, we examine whether the motivation to attract the other (i.e., selling orientation) in interpersonal first meetings (e.g., job interviews) helps or hinders the accuracy and validity of dispositional judgments. In a laboratory study (Study 1) we found that selling orientation reduced the accuracy of interviewer...