Effect of Interviewer Experience on Interview Pace and Interviewer Attitudes

Traditional statistical analyses of interviewer effects on surveydata do not examine whether these effects change over a fieldperiod. However, the nature of the survey interview is dynamic.Interviewers’ behaviors and perceptions may evolve asthey gain experience, thus potentially affecting data quality.This paper looks at how interview length and interviewer evaluationsof respondents change over interviewers’ workloads. Multilevelmodels with random interviewer effects are used to account forthe clustering of cases within interviewers and individual interviewercharacteristics in the 1984, 1988, and 2000 National ElectionStudies. The 1984 and 1988 NES released sample in four replicates,minimizing the confound between order in an interviewers’workload and sample composition. We find that over the courseof the studies, both measures change significantly. Interviewerprior survey experience also was significantly negatively relatedto the length of the interview. These findings have implicationsfor interviewer training prior to and during studies, as wellas suggesting future research to reveal why these behaviorsand perceptions change.     

Cultivating youth voice through participation in a Foster youth advisory board: Perspectives of facilitators

This study explored the construct of youth voices in one state youth advisory board (YAB) from the perspective of program staff and child welfare liaisons and administrators (referred to as ‘facilitators’). Our aim was to understand how youth voice is defined and activated on a foster youth advisory board. In-depth interviews with 13 facilitators of a YAB in a Mid-western state were conducted between August 2013 and June 2014. These interviews were a part of a larger study that investigated what 33 current and former elected officers of a YAB learned from participation. Each interview lasted between 1 and 1/2 to 2 h. A grounded dimensional analysis was used to investigate facilitators' perceptions of the impact of participation on the development of advocacy for self and others. Findings indicated that the belief system of facilitators, provision of social support, opportunities to try new roles, and state agency leadership contributed to the cultivation of youth voice through two parallel processes: personalization and professionalization. Suggestions for practice and YAB development are made to enhance sustainability and decrease tokenization of foster youths' voices in child welfare systems.     

"Like the Secret Service Isn't It". People with Learning Difficulties,' Perceptions of Staff and Services: mystification and disempowerment

Seven people with learning difficulties were interviewed using unstructured, conversational interviews, about their perceptions of staff in services they use. Three major themes emerged, which were perceptions relating to the physical presence and absence of staff; the emotional impact of interactions with staff; and the political impact of interactions with staff. It was found that the participants had only superficial knowledge of staff identities and roles, and of service systems and structures, and consequently lacked the knowledge and awareness necessary to negotiate what these roles might be, or even that negotiation might be possible. It is argued that this lack of knowledge and awareness is due not to any lack of ability on the part of the participants, but the assumption by staff and service providers that this is the case. These findings are discussed in relation to Kieffer's (1984) developmental model of empowerment, and empowerment issues generally.     

Surprise in Social Work Education

Training is commonly seen as the most viable way of ensuring good quality care in residential homes for elderly people. The literature on training has focused on a shift in emphasis from traditional 'professional' social work training for staff at a senior level to training which is to be provided for junior level staff. To this end, Scottish/National Vocational Qualifications have been introduced which, through workplace assessment of competence, have been proclaimed to be the means by which to raise the status and career prospects of a social care workforce. This article argues that task-based competence is increasingly being seen as relevant for a 'para-professional' social care workforce such as that found in the residential care sector. In the light of this, research was undertaken to establish whether residents preferred 'trained' staff, holding formal qualifications and/or NVQs, to 'untrained' staff with no recognised qualifications. The research concluded that residents want kind, understanding and experienced staff, and when length of time in post was taken into account, the effect of training was negligible. The study concluded that homes need to select staff for their good personal qualities and encourage them to stay. Staff need training that integrates skill with understanding and above all, assessment should reflect this perspective. Moreover, residents need to be involved in the assessment process.     

The advocate as gatekeeper: The limits of politeness in protective order interviews with Latina survivors of domestic abuse

Within institutions that provide assistance to victims of domestic violence, professionals and volunteers work as advocates for their clients at the same time that they act as gatekeepers for their agencies. While the labor of advocacy consists of empowering clients and validating their concerns and feelings, the task of gatekeeping entails making judgments about them in order to dole out goods and services. Thirty protective order interviews and their resulting affidavits form the data for this study. These interviews take place in a district attorney's office and in a pro bono law clinic. This micro-level analysis of the verbal interaction between protective order application interviewers (both paid and volunteer) and their Latina clients investigates what positive politeness strategies can reveal about how interviewers construct the conflicting discursive identities of advocate and gatekeeper. I examine what interviewers say to clients as well as how interviewers allow clients to give their accounts of abuse. The study points to specific linguistic techniques that may leave victims feeling unaccompanied in the sociolegal system. I suggest that one consequence of the gatekeeping required of interviewers is that victim-survivors may perceive a 'second assault' by the institutions meant to serve them. Linguistic phenomena particular to Latina women in the United States are also brought to light.     

Impact of Repeated Questioning on Interviewers: Learning From a Forensic Interview Training Project

Forensic interviewers have a difficult job with high risk for career burnout and secondary trauma. Few studies have addressed how new forensic interviewers or trainees experience repeated questioning and multiple interviews. This study simulated the process of training new forensic interviewers through the creation of two interview videos in which social work graduate students participated as actors portraying the roles of interviewer and child. These films served as instructional aids preparing graduate social work students for professional child welfare roles while promoting research-based approaches to interviewing children about sexual abuse allegations. Qualitative data from two cohorts of student actors were collected to analyze interviewers’ perspectives on repeated questioning and interviews in child sexual abuse cases. Two themes were extracted from the subjects’ experiences: “It is emotionally taxing” and “Navigating the interviewer role is unexpectedly complex.” Exposure to repeated questions and multiple interviews affected the performance and confidence of the interviewers.     

Re-approaching interview data through qualitative secondary analysis: interviews with internet gamblers

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses two interrelated questions concerning what interview data are and how researchers might use them. The first considers the value of a shift from a predominant or exclusive focus upon how data are constructed and produced at interview, and towards how such data might be apprehended through different forms of engagement. The second question relates to how and what qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) might be used to tell about the social world. In exploring this, we advance a critique of the divide between primary and secondary analysis, recasting the debate in terms of different degrees and qualities of ‘proximity’ and ‘distance’ from the formative contexts of data generation, and the distinctive analytical affordances that relate to these. Using QSA of interview data from a study of problem internet gambling as an empirical crucible, we consider the kinds of participation that interviewees develop through reciprocal engagement with interviewers. We illustrate how participants reflexively negotiate the affordances and limits to the narratives through which they frame and recount their experiences. Finally, we show how interview data can be used both to speak of the temporal, relational, spatial, epistemic contexts of their production, and also to contexts and questions beyond these.     

Integrating qualitative and quantitative methods in survey research on aging: An assessment

The benefits of triangulation have gained widespread acceptance and several notable studies have taken a combined-methods approach. However, to date there have been few analyses of attempts to extend survey research to include a qualitative component. This paper reports on what is essentially a survey research design in which three types of interviewing are triangulated: close-ended questions in a structured interview; open-ended questions embedded in the interview; and follow-up conversational interviews employing open-ended questions. This combined-methods approach is assessed in relation to elaboration of answers, interpretation and context, discovery in the field, and divergence. The author concludes that each source of data, as well as the divergence in findings among them, makes a valuable contribution to the research process.     

Clarifying question meaning in a household telephone survey

This study contrasts two interviewing techniques that reflectdifferent tacit assumptions about communication. In one, strictlystandardized interviewing, interviewers leave the interpretationof questions up to respondents. In the other, conversationalinterviewing, interviewers say whatever it takes to make surethat questions are interpreted uniformly and as intended. Respondentsfrom a national sample were interviewed twice. Each time theywere asked the same factual questions from ongoing governmentsurveys, five about housing and five about recent purchases.The first interview was strictly standardized; the second wasstandardized for half the respondents and conversational forthe others. Respondents in a second conversational interviewanswered differently than in the first interview more often,and for reasons that conformed more closely to official definitions,than respondents in a second standardized interview. This suggeststhat conversational interviewing improved comprehension, althoughit also lengthened interviews. We conclude that respondentsin a national sample may misinterpret certain questions frequentlyenough to compromise data quality and that such misunderstandingscannot easily be eliminated by pretesting and rewording questionsalone. More standardized comprehension may require less standardizedinterviewer behavior.     

Staff and client perspectives on the Journey Mapping online evaluation tool in a drug court program

The purpose of this study was to assess staff and client perspectives on the Internet-based Journey Mapping program evaluation tool. A drug court program was chosen for a case study research design. Six staff and 10 clients participated in interviews and observations, and also responded to a questionnaire. A staff survey provided additional data. The study revealed evidence that (1) Journey Mapping was user-friendly, saved time, promoted positive thinking, facilitated communication, increased learning, and created client voice; (2) Journey Mapping, as a program evaluation tool, supported both administrative and treatment functions of the drug court; and (3) Journey Mapping's positive orientation supplied momentum for clients’ treatment progress. Journey Mapping's distinctive technology offered a viable option for including narrative methods along with quantitative methods in program evaluation.     

Experiences of a Mass Interinstitutional Relocation for Long-Term Care Staff

This research explored long-term care (LTC) staff perceptions and experiences of working in LTC and providing care to residents following a mass interinstitutional relocation. In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 63 LTC workers. Thematic analyses revealed three overarching themes related to how staff members perceived their relationships with other staff members following relocation. The first theme, post-relocation relationships between staff members, included the subthemes “Staff are segregated from each other” (physical distance) and “We were a family” to “barely say hi” (psychological distance). The second theme, post-relocation stress, has two subthemes: “Staffing is our big issue” and consequences of stress: absenteeism and leave. The third theme is recommendations for improving and managing staff relationships post-relocation. Relationships among staff members are integral to working in LTC and providing care to residents following a mass interinstitutional relocation. Recommendations for improving staff relationships and morale are suggested.     

Narrative analysis of the hospital experience for older parents of people who cannot speak

In this study eight parents aged over 60 years participated in in-depth interviews about their experiences in supporting an adult son or daughter with cerebral palsy and complex communication needs (CCN) in hospital. A narrative analysis of the interviews provided insights into the nature of the parent carer's experiences in hospital. The results are presented as an interpretation of the participants' perceptions of their roles in hospital and the impact of these upon their health and wellbeing in older age. The participants' suggestions of how to improve the hospital care experience for all concerned are included and directions for future research are discussed.     

Beyond performative talk: critical observations on the radical critique of reading interview data

ABSTRACT

We centrally consider the question of what interview data can be used to ‘say’ through a dialogue with advocates of the ‘radical critique’ of interview studies. We propose that while the critique has considerable utility in drawing to ‘the social life of interviews’ and the pervasiveness of notions of the ‘romantic subject’, it simultaneously goes too far in its reduction of interviews to narrative performance, and not far enough in its own critical departure from core characteristics of the romantic subject. We show how the critique leaves intact imagery of a seemingly unbridgeable divide between the experienced and the expressed, and involves a related conflation of what can be said at interview with what interviews can be used to say. We explore how the radical critique might productively be built upon via more ‘synthetic’ forms of research engagement, outlining alternative modes of apprehending interview data through a further critical departure from the romantic subject. Accordingly, we advance a move beyond a sole engagement with questions of how data are constructed and produced and towards how such data might otherwise be used to speak about the social world beyond the social nexus that constitutes an interview encounter.     

In between formal and informal: Staff and youth relationships in care and after leaving care

This paper deals with the contact and relationship youth have with staff while in care and after emancipation and examines the young adults' needs in contacting staff after leaving care. The study was conducted through 60 interviews with young adults ages 21–26 who emancipated from residential settings in Israel. Results showed that most youth report having had a meaningful staff member in care and that 62% were in contact with staff after their transition to independent living for both emotional and practical needs that could not always be answered by staff. One of the study's conclusions is that despite their departure staff's relationship with these young adults continues informally years after. However, without formal recognition of the place staff have in the lives of aged-out youth, no resources are invested in training them to properly meet the young adults' needs. The discussion highlights the need for an integrative approach that sees residential settings and staff as a meaningful part in the continuity from care to independent living by supporting aged-out youth's gradual transition to adult life.     

The system-of-care for homeless youth: perceptions of service providers

Service providers' perceptions of the system of care for homeless youth are described. Face-to-face structured interviews were conducted with staff at homeless youth agencies in Los Angeles County (L.A. County) regarding organizational and staff characteristics, issues affecting youth, types of available services, gaps in services, and barriers to service delivery.Overall, agencies were large, well established, and provided multiple services. Most agencies (62%) were concentrated in Hollywood, a cruise area of L.A. County. Clear distinctions emerged between large and small agencies; large agencies had more resources, more professional staff, were established longer, and were policy advocates. Typical of other US metropolitan areas, services for homeless youth in L.A. County are located in cruise areas, and are not as readily available in other geographic areas. Such geographic barriers to providing a comprehensive and coordinated system of care can affect youth's pathways out of homelessness.     

Orphanage caregivers' perceptions: The impact of organizational factors on the provision of services to orphans in the Ashanti Region of Ghana

Adding to the growing body of literature on outcomes for children living in orphanages and children's homes, this qualitative study explored the perceptions of institutional personnel – caregivers, staff members, supervisors, and administrators – about organizational factors affecting their ability to care for orphaned and vulnerable children living in institutions in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The participants in this study consisted of 59 caregivers, 7 supervisors, 10 administrators, 4 cooks, 4 teachers, 1 social worker, 1 security guard/driver, and 6 women classified as house helpers. Individual interviews were conducted using an English-written and stated semistructured interview guide the researchers had created. The data from the 92 interviews were transcribed and coded using inductive methodologies. The results revealed concerns from the personnel about their institutions' lack of adequate funding for essential items, including food and medicine for the children. The personnel were also concerned about the lack of appropriate workplace standards to ensure the sustainability of a viable workplace environment, including inadequate training, supervision, communication procedures, and staffing patterns, and collaborative partnerships and associations with other public or private community-based institutions. The findings from this study have considerable policy, practice, and research implications for social workers.