2016/12/10 by Brady T. West, Frederick G. Conrad, Frauke Kreuter +1
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Patient Satisfaction in Healthcare #Patient-Provider Communication in Healthcare #Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
paper · doi:10.1111/rssa.12255
openalex publication_date 2016/12/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Summary Several studies have shown that conversational interviewing (CI) reduces response bias for complex survey questions relative to standardized interviewing. However, no studies have addressed concerns about whether CI increases intra-interviewer correlations (IICs) in the responses collected, which could negatively impact the overall quality of survey estimates. The paper reports the results of an experimental investigation addressing this question in a national face-to-face survey. We find that CI improves response quality, as in previous studies, without substantially or frequently increasing IICs. Furthermore, any slight increases in the IICs do not offset the reduced bias in survey estimates engendered by CI.