IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v14y1985i1p31-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender Effects among Telephone Interviewers in a Survey of Economic Attitudes

Author

Listed:
  • ROBERT M. GROVES

    (The University of Michigan)

  • NANCY H. FULTZ

    (The University of Michigan)

Abstract

Male and female telephone interviewers are compared on both administrative efficiency and data quality, using data from 24 replications of an attitudinal survey on personal and national economic prospects. The 40 male interviewers used over the two-year period are found to exhibit higher turnover rates and, because of that, lower response rates and higher training costs than the 80 female interviewers. However, there are no real differences on the total per minute interview costs by gender, in missing data rates, or on response distributions for factual questions. There does appear to be a systematic tendency for male interviewers to obtain more optimistic reports from respondents regarding their economic outlook. Multivariate models are constructed that attempt to explain these results and speculations are offered about causes of the impact of interviewer gender on response formation.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert M. Groves & Nancy H. Fultz, 1985. "Gender Effects among Telephone Interviewers in a Survey of Economic Attitudes," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 14(1), pages 31-52, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:14:y:1985:i:1:p:31-52
    DOI: 10.1177/0049124185014001002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124185014001002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0049124185014001002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wil Dijkstra, 1983. "How interviewer variance can bias the results of research on interviewer effects," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 179-187, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lee, Taeku, 2001. "Language-of-Interview Effects and Latino Mass Opinion," Working Paper Series rwp01-041, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    2. Anthony Miyazaki & Kimberly Taylor, 2008. "Researcher Interaction Biases and Business Ethics Research: Respondent Reactions to Researcher Characteristics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 81(4), pages 779-795, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. J. J. Hox, 1994. "Hierarchical Regression Models for Interviewer and Respondent Effects," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 22(3), pages 300-318, February.
    2. Fahmi Fidan Mahmut & Öztaş Ayhan H. & Batmaz İnci, 2021. "Interviewer allocation through interview–reinterview nested design for response error estimation in sample surveys," Statistics in Transition New Series, Statistics Poland, vol. 22(2), pages 67-93, June.
    3. Theo Van Tilburg, 1998. "Interviewer Effects in the Measurement of Personal Network Size," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 26(3), pages 300-328, February.
    4. Merijn Eikelenboom & Melany Horsfall & Stasja Draisma & Jan H Smit, 2023. "Investigating people’s lifetime history of suicide attempts: a roadmap for studying interviewer-related error," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 3183-3197, August.
    5. Finn-Aage Esbensen & Scott Menard, 1991. "Interviewer-related measurement error in attitudinal research: a nonexperimental study," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 151-165, May.
    6. Isabella Buber-Ennser & Judith Kohlenberger & Bernhard Rengs & Zakarya Al Zalak & Anne Goujon & Erich Striessnig & Michaela Potančoková & Richard Gisser & Maria Rita Testa & Wolfgang Lutz, 2016. "Human Capital, Values, and Attitudes of Persons Seeking Refuge in Austria in 2015," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-29, September.
    7. Wil Dijkstra, 1987. "Interviewing Style and Respondent Behavior," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 16(2), pages 309-334, November.
    8. Fidan Mahmut Fahmi & H. Öztaş Ayhan & Ìnci Batmaz, 2021. "Interviewer allocation through interview–reinterview nested design for response error estimation in sample surveys," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 22(2), pages 67-93, June.
    9. Allyson L. Holbrook & Isabel C. Farrar & Susan J. Popkin, 2006. "Surveying a Chicago Public Housing Development," Evaluation Review, , vol. 30(6), pages 779-802, December.
    10. Sigrid Haunberger, 2010. "The effects of interviewer, respondent and area characteristics on cooperation in panel surveys: a multilevel approach," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 44(5), pages 957-969, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:14:y:1985:i:1:p:31-52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.