| Abstract: | Public relations practitioners rely on staff-produced telephone surveys for a variety of research projects. This study reports on one such project that revealed a serious methodological flaw in interviewer bias. Most surveys, using standard detection procedures, would not find the defect. Yet the outcomes were so misleading that any campaign using the results would be doomed. This study sounds an alarm for practitioner telephone surveys and suggests special precautions if in-house staff serve as interviewers. |
