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Interviewers' evaluations of the general difficulty of a survey have no effect on the cooperation rate they obtain, but do affect responses to individual questions. The effects of interviewer expectations were weaker with respect to three factors manipulated in the study: (1) the amount of information given to respondents before the interview, (2) the assurance of confidentiality given to respondents, & (3) the request for a signature, either before or after an interview. Although the effects of interviewers' expectations are not large, interviewers who expect more difficulty with a study, or certain parts of it, tend to obtain higher nonresponse rates to sensitive questions & lower estimates of sensitive behavior. An analogous problem is that of the similarity of interviewers' expectations: if interviewers share similar expectations, the effects of such expectations may be significant, yet difficult to detect without a special experimental strategy. 8 Tables. Modified AA.

From 1979 to 1996, the Survey of Consumer Attitudes response rate remained roughly 70%. But number of calls to complete an interview & proportion of interviews requiring refusal conversion doubled. Using call-record histories, we explore what the consequences of lower response rates would have been if these additional efforts had not been undertaken. Both number of calls & initially cooperating (vs initially refusing) are related to the Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS), but only number of calls survives a control for demographic characteristics. We assess the impact of excluding respondents who required refusal conversion (which reduces the response rate 5-10 percentage points), respondents who required more than five calls to complete the interview (reducing the response rate about 25 percentage points), & those who required more than two calls (a reduction of about 50 percentage points). We found no effect of excluding any of these respondent groups on cross-sectional estimates of the ICS using monthly samples of hundreds of cases. For yearly estimates, based on thousands of cases, the exclusion of respondents who required more calls (though not of initial refusers) had an effect, but a very small one. One of the exclusions generally affected estimates of change over time in the ICS, irrespective of sample size. 9 Tables, 3 Figures, 1 Appendix, 8 References. Adapted from the source document.

In attempting to move questionnaire design from art to science, researchers use different evaluation techniques to help determine how well questions are working. Techniques such as behavior coding, respondent/interviewer debriefing, cognitive interviewing, & nonresponse analysis all provide information to help the questionnaire designer assess whether respondents understand questions as intended & whether they are able to provide adequate answers to them. However, these techniques do not actually measure question reliability. It is assumed that questions that pass the screen of the questionnaire evaluation techniques described above are also more likely to produce data that are reliable & valid. Here, behavior coding data is employed to predict test-retest reliability. Respondent behavior codes significantly predict such reliability, whereas interviewer codes -- at least in this survey of 54,000 US households -- do not. Results are also reported of sensitivity testing to determine what % of adequate respondent answers best predicts test-retest reliability. 2 Appendixes, 19 References. Adapted from the source document.

Reports findings from eight US polls, most conducted 1986-1997, revealing that public awareness of & attitudes toward genetic testing, engineering, & therapy changed little during the 1980s-1990s. Some increased awareness of genetic screening & decreased approval for genetic engineering are evident. Most Americans report willingness to be genetically tested for both curable diseases & fatal conditions they might pass on to children. Little support exists for non-disease-related genetic alteration (eg, improving intelligence), & opinions on aborting fetuses with genetic defects are mixed. Strong privacy concerns regarding genetic testing are apparent, as is opposition to animal &, especially, human cloning. People tend to attribute life conditions/behaviors more to environment & learning than to heredity. Religiosity & religion correlate with many of these opinions in predictable ways. Possible effects of poll methodologies are discussed. 8 Appendixes, 25 References. E. Blackwell