Talking or Texting: Interviewer-Respondent Interaction in Face-to-Face, Telephone, and Messenger Tool Surveys. |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Marieke Haan (University of Groningen) |
| Coordinator 2 | Dr Yfke Ongena (University of Groningen) |
| Coordinator 3 | Dr Peter Lugtig (Utrecht University) |
| Coordinator 4 | Dr Vera Toepoel (Utrecht University) |
Much can be learned from the microanalysis of survey interactions (Bradburn, 2015). Although analyzing these data is often a tedious task, we acquire vital knowledge about verbal behaviors of interviewers and respondents and its effects on survey participation, data collection and measurement quality. This generates knowledge to improve question wording, interviewer training and data collection procedures.
Originally, work on interviewer-respondent interactions is focused on face-to-face and telephone interviews. For example, studies show how rapport works between interviewers and respondents (Garbarski et al. 2016), how verbal interviewer actions can be explained (Haan et al., 2013; Schaeffer et al. 2013), and how respondents’ disfluencies lead to unreliable responses (Schober et al., 2012).
New possibilities of interaction arise with surveys that are conducted online with smartphones. Mobile phones are convenient communication tools for making web surveys more responsive. Messenger tools that people use increasingly to engage with others (e.g. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS) can also be used in survey data collection. First, text messaging can be used for surveys by building automatic interviewing systems with messenger chatbots for mobile phones (Schober et al. 2015). These systems can be made more responsive by making use of online probing techniques simulating real interviewers. Second, text messages can be send by real interviewers, which results in interviewer-respondent interaction in a messenger environment. These developments leave us with questions on what specific aspects make interaction, in a talking mode (face-to-face or telephone) or a texting mode (via messenger tools) most productive, engaging and stimulating.
We invite researchers to present their work on survey interactions in talking and texting modes. Papers may concern a variety of topics but should include analysis of verbal behaviors of interviewers or simulated interviewers (i.e., virtual agents, chatbots), respondents, or both.