A Study of Experimental Techniques for Telephone Interviewing

This investigation focused on the effects of experimental interviewingprocedures, which were developed in face-to-face interviews,on reporting in telephone contacts. Respondents in a nationalRDD sample (N=1,1054) were randomly assigned to be interviewedwith one of two experimental procedures, or a control technique.The experimental procedures involved two different combinationsof three interviewing techniques which had been found to beeffective in personal interviewing studies—commitment,instructions, and feedback. The techniques are designed to betterinform respondents about reporting tasks and to motivate themto perform the tasks well. The findings suggest that the experimentalprocedures can improve reporting in telephone interview, althoughthe effects in this study were not as strong as we expected.This research may be seen as a beginning step in the developmentof optimal telephone interviewing procedures.