Analyzing Interviewer/Respondent Interactions while Using a Mobile Computer-Assisted Personal Interview Device

Abstract

This article explores interviewer/respondent interactions using a handheld computer (HHC) and identifies issues arising from using a self-administered paper form to create a mobile computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) instrument. To evaluate the success of this instrument, the authors used the behavior-coding method to evaluate a sample of about 220 audiotaped interviews to identify survey questions that cause problems at the administration and/or response stage. This article explores problems with the interview, as it was conductedon an HHC, both at a question level and overall. The objective of this study was to investigate whether the automation of this survey instrument encouraged standardized interviewing procedures by examining how interviewers read the questions and how respondents answer them. The authors discuss mode-specific problems that arose in the interview and proposesuggestionsfor futuresurveys thatuse a similar methodof datacollection.