Strangers in the Field: A Methodological Experiment on Interviewer-Respondent Familiarity.

Evaluating a long-term methodological norm - the use of interviewers who have no prior social relationship to respondents - we compare response patterns across levels of interviewer-respondent familiarity. We differentiate three distinct levels of interviewer-respondent familiarity, based on whether the interviewer is directly acquainted with the respondent or their family, acquainted with the research setting, or is a complete outsider. We also identify three mechanisms through which variability in interviewer-respondent familiarity can affect survey responses: the effort a respondent is willing to make; their level of trust in the interviewer; and interview-specific situational factors. Using data from a methodological experiment fielded in the Dominican Republic, we then gauge the effects of each of these on a range of behavioral and attitudinal questions. Empirical results suggest that respondents expend marginally more effort in answering questions posed by insider-interviewers, and that they also lie less to insider-interviewers. Differences in responses to "trust" questions also largely favor insider-interviewers. Overall, therefore, local interviewers, including those whom, in blatant violation of the stranger-interviewer norm, have a prior relationship with the respondent, collect superior data on some items. And on almost no item do they collect data that are measurably worse.

Voulant évaluer une pratique méthodologique ancienne ­ le recours à des enquêteurs qui n'ont pas eu d'interactions préalable avec la personne interrogée -, nous comparons les réponses apportées à un questionnaire en fonction du niveau de familiarité entretenu entre les deux protagonistes. L'article se fonde sur trois catégories distinctes de familiarité : si l'enquêteur est en relation directe avec la personne interrogée ou sa famille, s'il connaît le terrain d'enquête dans lequel il intervient, ou s'il en est complètement étranger. Nous identifions trois mécanismes au travers desquels ce lien entre un enquêteur et un enquêté peut affecter les réponses : le degré avec lequel la personne interrogée est prête à faire des efforts pour répondre, son niveau de confiance envers l'enquêteur, ainsi que des facteurs spécifiques à la situation d'entretien. A partir de données d'expérimentation méthodologique conduites en République Dominicaine, nous avons mesuré les effets de chacun de ces mécanismes sur des réponses à des questions portant sur des comportements et attitudes. Les résultats empiriques suggèrent que les répondants font à la marge plus d'efforts pour répondre lorsque les questions sont posées par un enquêteur familier ; de la même manière, ils lui mentent moins souvent. Les réponses apportées aux questions « de confiance ¼ tendent également largement en faveur d'un enquêteur connu du répondant. Plus généralement, le recours à des enquêteurs locaux, c'est-à-dire issus du terrain et incluant donc, en violation des règles habituellement suivies, des enquêteurs ayant déjà eu des relations avec la personne interrogée, produit des données plus fiables sur plusieurs items. Sur la plupart des items, les données collectées ne sont, en tous les cas, pas moins bonnes.

A test of the stranger-interviewer norm in the Dominican Republic.

We offer the first empirical test of the 'stranger-interviewer norm', according to which interviewers in social, demographic, and health surveys should be strangers-not personally familiar with respondents. We use data from an experimental survey in the Dominican Republic that featured three types of interviewer: from out of town (outsiders); local but unknown to the respondent (local-strangers); and local with a previous relationship to the respondent (insiders). We were able to validate answers to up to 18 questions per respondent, mainly by checking official documents in their possession. Contrary to expectations derived from the stranger-interviewer norm, respondents were more reluctant to show the documents needed for validation when the interviewer was an outsider. Furthermore, and again at odds with the stranger-interviewer norm, we found no difference in accuracy by type of interviewer. Our results have important implications for the selection of survey interviewers in less developed and non-Western settings.

Family Planning for Strangers: An Experiment on the Validity of Reported Contraceptive Use.

Sterilization levels reported in the Dominican Republic appear well above what we would normally expect given prevailing patterns in the region. We suspect that the use of strangers as interviewers--the normative approach in data collection in both developed and developing country settings--may be partly responsible for this result, and may underlie a long history of bias in family planning data. We present findings from a field experiment conducted in a Dominican town in 2010, where interviewer assignment was randomized by level of preexisting level of familiarity between interviewer and respondent. In our data, sterilization use is higher when the interviewer is an outsider, as opposed to someone known to the respondent or from the same community. In addition, high sterilization use is correlated with a propensity of respondents to present themselves in a positive light to interviewers. These results call into question the routine use of strangers and outsiders as interviewers in demographic and health surveys.

Immigrants and natives in U.S. science and engineering occupations, 1994-2006.

Between 1994 and 2006, the ratio of foreign-born scientists and engineers (FSE) to native scientists and engineers (NSE) doubled. I decompose this change into a migration effect (which accounts for migration in general), a proportional college effect (which accounts for the relative proportions of college graduates among migrant and native workers), and a proportional science and engineering (S&E) effect (which accounts for the relative proportions of S&Es among migrant and native college-educated workers). Results show that the migration effect explains about three-quarters of the increase in FSE/NSE during the entire period under study. The proportional S&E effect, which captures changes in the ratio as a result of immigration of S&Es in excess of what would be expected from general migration alone, was largest in 1995-1998, which were years of sustained economic growth. Conversely, a slower economy coincided with a declining proportional S&E effect after 2000. Increases in the annual cap on H-lB visas, an important avenue of entryforforeign-born S&Es, had little effect on the ratio. In short, during 1994-2006, the association between economic swings and the specific, more than proportional migration of S&Es was much stronger than the association between the latter and changes in the H-1B cap.