Gender-of-Interviewer Effects in a Video-Enhanced Web Survey
Results from a Randomized Field Experiment
Abstract
In this paper, a video-enhanced version of a Web survey is assessed. Instead of written questions on a screen, a female and a male interviewer shown on prerecorded flash video clips administered the questions to the respondents. Given the more pronounced human cues induced by the audio-visual channel, we expected gender-of-interviewer effects similar to face-to-face interviews. In a field-experimental study, 880 respondents from the University of Kassel online access panel took part in a survey on relationships, sexual behaviors, and related issues. Random subsamples saw a female or a male interviewer, respectively, while the control group answered the Web survey in a traditional text-based Web survey mode. Results indicate that gender-of-interviewer effects occur in a video-enhanced Web survey similar to a face-to-face interview. Since we found same-gender effects as well as opposite-gender effects – which contradicts social distance theory – we speculate that the direction of a gender-of-interviewer effect depends on the existence of gender-related social stereotypes.
References
2004). Social presence and interpersonal trust in avatar-based, collaborative net-communications. Paper presented at the 7th Annual International Workshop on Presence Valencia, October 13–15, 2004.
(2007). The live or digital interviewer. A comparison between CASI, CAPI, and CATI with respect to differences in response behavior. International Journal of Market Research, 49, 167–190.
(2003). Wissenschaftliche Grundlagen, Teil 2: Jugendliche [
. (Scientific fundamentals, part 2: Juveniles ]. Köln: Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung.1996). Effects of interviewer gender, interviewer choice, and item wording on responses to questions concerning sexual behavior. Public Opinion Quarterly, 60, 345–375.
(2008). Technology and the survey interview/questionnaire. In , Envisioning the survey interview of the future (pp. 58–76). New York: Wiley.
(2001, March–April). Social presence in web surveys. Paper presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Seattle, WA.
(1983). How interviewer variance can bias the results of research on interviewer effects. Quality and Quantity, 17, 179–187.
(1993). Effect of interviewer and respondent characteristics on reporting of chronic conditions. Paper presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings of the American Statistical Association.
(2007). Disentangling response-order effects in orally administered surveys: Results from a field experiment. Paper presented at the WAPOR 60th Annual Conference Berlin (Germany), 19–21 September 2007.
(2008). Effects of interviewer gender on survey responses: Findings from a household survey in Mexico. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 20(1), 1–11.
(2006). The effects of interviewer gender and race on sensitive health questions. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Association, Miami Beach, FL.
(2008). Video computer-assisted self-interviewing (V-CASI). In , Encyclopedia of survey research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
(2007). Video web survey. Results of an experimental comparison with a text-based web survey. In , Challenges of a changing world. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of the Association for Survey Computing (pp. 63–80). Berkeley: Association for Survey Computing.
(2008). Die Video-unterstützte Online-Befragung: Soziale Präsenz, soziale Erwünschtheit und Underreporting sensitiver Informationen [
(The video-enhanced web survey: Social presence, social desirability, and underreporting of sensitive information ]. In , Sozialforschung im Internet. Methodologie und Praxis der Online-Befragung [Social science research on the internet: Methodology and applications of the web survey methodology ] (pp. 156–177). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.2007). Datenerhebung im Netz: Messmethoden und Skalen [
(Data collection on the internet: Measurement instruments and scales ]. In , Online-Forschung 2007. Grundlagen und Fallstudien [Online research 2007: Fundamentals and case studies ] (pp. 52–76). Köln: Herbert von Halem Verlag.2006). Video computer-assisted self-administered interviews for deaf respondents. Field Methods, 18, 267–283.
(2003). Animaqu – eine computerbasierte Befragung als Möglichkeit zur Erfassung besonderer Zielgruppen [
(Animaqu – Computer-assisted interviewing among special populations ]. ZUMA Nachrichten, 52, 35–54.1985). Gender effects among telephone interviewers in a survey of economic attitudes. Sociological Methods Research, 14(1), 31–52.
(2004). Internal consistency and reliability of the networked minds social presence measure. In , Seventh Annual International Workshop: Presence 2004. Valencia, Spain: Universidad Politecnica de Valencia.
(2001). Interviewers and respondents effects on self-reported alcohol consumption in a Swiss health survey. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 62, 434–442.
(1997). The effect of interviewer gender on the survey response. Political Behavior, 19, 197–220.
(1993). Gender interactions between interviewer and survey respondents: Issues of pornography and community standards. Sex Roles, 28(5/6), 243–261.
(1976). Response effects in sex surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly, 40, 165–181.
(1993). Interviewer gender and gender attitudes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 57(1), 1–28.
(2005). Audiovisual touch-screen computer-assisted self-interviewing for donor health histories: Results from 2 years experience with the system. Transfusion, 45, 171–180.
(2003). The effects of interviewer gender and child gender on the informativeness of alleged child sexual abuse victims in forensic interviews. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 157–171.
(1973). Feminist attitudes as related to sex of the interviewer. Pacific Sociological Review, 16, 305–316.
(1990). Gender and response effects in telephone interviews about gender characteristics. Sex Roles, 22(1/2), 29–42.
(2004). Der Mensch in der Online-Kommunikation. Zum Einfluss webbasierter, audiovisueller Fernkommunikation auf das Verhalten von Befragten [
(Human beings in web communications: On the impact of web-based audio-visual remote communication on respondent behavior ]. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts Verlag.2002). Ein Inventar zur Erfassung von zwei Faktoren sozialer Erwünschtheit [
(An inventory of the assessment of two dimensions of social desirability ]. Diagnostica, 48, 121–129.2005). Wired for speech. How voice activates and advances the human-computer relationship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
(1997). Are machines gender neutral? Gender-stereotypic responses to computers with voices. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 27, 864–876.
(2007). Applications of the document object model (DOM) in Web-surveys. Paper presented at the Workshop on Internet Survey Methodology, Lillehammer, Norway, September 17–19, 2007.
(2008). Interval-level measurement with visual analog scales in Internet-based research: VAS generator. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 699–704.
(2008). Survey interviews and new communication technologies. In , Envisioning the survey interview of the future (pp. 1–30). New York: Wiley.
(2007). Watch what I do: Using graphical input controls in Web surveys. In , Challenges of a changing world. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of the Association for Survey Computing (pp. 81–92). Berkeley: Association for Survey Computing.
(2003). Humanizing self-administered surveys: Experiments on social presence in web and IVR surveys. Computers in Human Behavior, 19(1), 1–24.
(2007). Social distance, respondent cooperation, and item nonresponse in sex survey. Quality and Quantity, 41, 177–199.
(2001). Computer-assisted audiovisual health history self-interviewing. Results of the pilot study of the Hoxworth Quality Donor System. Transfusion, 41, 1469–1474.
(