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Interviewers' and Respondents' Joint Production of Response Quality in Openended Questions: A Multilevel Negativebinomial Regression Approach
[journal article]
Abstract Open-ended questions are an important methodological tool for social science researchers, but they suffer from large variations in response quality. In this contribution, we discuss the state of research and develop a systematic approach to the mechanisms of quality generation in open-ended question... view more
Open-ended questions are an important methodological tool for social science researchers, but they suffer from large variations in response quality. In this contribution, we discuss the state of research and develop a systematic approach to the mechanisms of quality generation in open-ended questions, examining the effects from respondents and interviewers as well as those arising from their interactions. Using data from an open-ended question on associations with foreigners living in Germany from the ALLBUS 2016, we first apply a two-level negative binomial regression to model influences on response quality on the interviewer and respondent level and their interaction. In a second regression analysis, we assess how qualitative variation (information entropy) in responses on the interviewer level is related to interviewer characteristics and data quality. We find that respondents' education, age, gender, motivation and topic interest influence response quality. The interviewer-related variance in response length is 36%. Whereas interviewer characteristics (age, gender, education, experience) do not have a direct effect, they impact on response quality due to interactions between interviewer and respondent characteristics. Notably, an interviewer's experience has a positive effect on response quality only in interaction with highly educated respondents.... view less
Keywords
interview; questionnaire; data quality; response behavior; reactivity effect; survey research; data capture
Classification
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Free Keywords
open-ended questions; interviewer effects; multilevel model; interaction; response quality; ALLBUS 2016
Document language
English
Publication Year
2021
Page/Pages
p. 43-76
Journal
Methods, data, analyses : a journal for quantitative methods and survey methodology (mda), 15 (2021) 1
Issue topic
The Use of Open-ended Questions in Surveys
ISSN
2190-4936
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed