Interviews, Telephone Surveys, Victim Surveys

what are in person interviews?

face to face interaction that are best used when time and money are plentiful

what are the 3 types of interviews?

depth
structured
unstructured

what are the 6 general rules for interviewing?

appearance and demeanor of interviewer
familiarity with questions
follow questions with exact wording
probe respondents for details
record responses exactly
training and orientation

what are the 4 advantages of interviews?

personal contact
higher response rate
clarify questions
interviewer is an observer

what is the disadvantage of interviews?

bias (gender or race)

issues with telephone surveys?

callbacks
distractions
interesting questions

advantages of telephone surveys

no staff
monitoring of bias
inexpensive

disadvantages of telephone surveys

excludes those with no phone
lower response rates
hard to get in-depth responses

what are victim surveys

question a sample of population to obtain estimate of victimization

what does what we learn through the NCVS depend on?

what we ask and how we ask it

what do victim surveys and UCRs tend to do?

victim surveys overestimate crime and UCRs underestimate

what are the 9 problems with surveys?

bias
cost
interviewer effects
false reports
mistakes
over/underreporting
poor memory
problems measuring crime
telescoping

how do you control for survey problems?

bounding
reverse record checks