Suchergebnisse

Based on a study of Amer Nobel laureates in sci, this report examines the strategy & tatics of interviewing members of ultra-elites, the typically thin layer of people at the very top of the stratification system of every soc instit who have great influence, authority or power & who generally are accorded the highest prestige. As recipients of the most distinguished internat'l award in sci, Nobel laureates are members of the ultra-elite of sci, being defined as such by fellow sci'ts & by the public at large. Unlike those who ordinarily serve as R's & informants for soc sci'ts, members of this ultra-elite carefully husband their time & require evidence of the legitimacy of the interview task & of the interviewer's competence. Requests for interviews must provide this evidence if the interview is to be granted. Detailed preparation for each interview on the S's career & his sci'fic work served 2 purposes: it provided the basis for tailoring interview schedules to the special qualifications of each laureate & it served to persuade wary S's of the interviewer's knowledgeability & seriousness of purpose. Rather than accepting the interviewer & his task as a given, a majority of laureates continuously engaged in testing & critical evaluation of the interviewer. They were also concerned with maximizing their own role performance & sought information on how well they were doing. The report also considers problems of the use of technical language & the phrasing of questions. Members of the ultra-elite are impatient with generalities just as they are impatient with questions that do not seem to tap their special qualifications. Ultra-elites are unlikely to be receptive to the use of standard interview guides, & the use of such guides is apt to be inefficient for the purposes of res. AA.

A report on a survey which investigated the use of Med resources by surviving veterans of the Spanish-Amer War (N= 1,678). The youngest R's were in their late 70's. A survey response rate of 92% was achieved. It is pointed out that a res'er need have no fear in embarking on a survey of aged persons if he knows them to be in reasonably good health, if the topic of res is one that touches them personally, & if he has no reason to believe that they are more mobile than aged persons are wont to be. After each survey, each of the 149 interviewers filled out a brief questionaire on which he on which he recorded his reactions to his particular assignment. 75% rated this survey easier than others on which they had worked, 14% found it no cliff, & only 11% thought it harder. On the whole, R's enjoyed the interview &/or were cooperative. A study of the interviewers provided personal & att'al data on 111 of the interviewers, which were cross-tabulated with selected items from the interviewers' responses to the 9 recording their reactions. Interviewer quality (N of yrs' experience, educ, & agreement that most people enjoy being interviewed) showed no clear relationship with positive response to the above study. The strongest relationship with a positive reaction to the study was found with 3 items describing an interviewer who sees herself as a religious, noncynical person, who enjoys engaging in verbal expression. A positive interview response was found to be related to the rate of activity or interaction among R's-the higher the rate of activity, the more likely a positive interview response. Most of the R's had a high rate of involvement in a range of normal soc roles. 1 Table. M. Maxfield.

This edition retains much of the material of the first edition, but includes extended material on planning for the interview, and on the conduct of the interview, aimed at making its coverage of the basic concepts more comprehensive. Use of groups for individual assessment and development, particularly in human relations training contexts, has increased immeasurably in the last decade, and this has necessitated a more extensive treatment of the theory and practice of group dynamics; the use of counselling interviews receives more attention in this edition, in recognition of recent advances in the use of the interview therapeutically

Field interviewing methods used in a study involving Federal appellate judges are described. As found in other studies, the interviewing of such an elite group tends not to be much diff from other survey res situations. Perhaps most important is the need to keep the interviews as short as possible-to avoid the potentially serious problem of undue imposition on an 'important' person's time. Evidence gathered also indicates that res'ers should make greater efforts to share their findings as soon as possible with R's. AA.