Extraneous Effects of Race, Gender, and Race-Gender Homo- and Heterophily Conditions on Data Quality

Abstract

This study comprehensively investigated the differences in response patterns of interview respondents by race, gender, and race-gender of both respondents and interviewers, to assess the impacts of response inconsistencies on data quality during survey interviews. The study focused only on Blacks and Whites in various interview phily matches. Interviewees ( N = 491) responded to fully structured, closed-ended questions through direct interviews on support for affirmative action, and support for the 2009 America’s Affordable Health Choices Act as dependent variables. Findings showed various amounts of response differences to both dependent variables by differences in race, gender, and race-gender of respondents, vis-à-vis those of the interviewers’, thereby constituting various amounts of data inconsistencies. The effects of race, gender, and race-gender of both interviewers and respondents constitute potential nonrandom errors that must be controlled in interview survey research, otherwise, research findings and conclusions may diverge from true relationships between variables.

The effect of sociodemographic (mis)match between interviewers and respondents on unit and item nonresponse in Belgium

“…When also considering the characteristics of the sample units, previous research on the effect of (mis)matching sociodemographic characteristics on survey nonresponse has predominantly focussed on (mis)matching gender and race/ethnicity (for an overview, see e.g. Davis et al 2010;Oyinlade and Losen 2014). Some studies have found that racial mismatching can lead to lower co-operation rates (e.g.…”

“…Davis et al 2010). A mismatch of race and/or gender has been found to affect the frequency of affirmative answers to (attitudinal) questions (Oyinlade 2014;Oyinlade and Losen 2014).…”

“…Durrant et al 2010) and the quality of respondents' answers (e.g. Oyinlade and Losen 2014;Samples et al 2014). However, the effect on survey errors of matching the sociodemographic characteristics of interviewers with those of sample units in face-to-face surveys still requires further study.…”

Improving Data Quality with Sociodemographic Matching?: About the Effects and Implications of Age and Gender Matching in Face-to-Face Interviews

“…Matching on ethnic characteristics or, especially in the U.S. context, origin, was one of the first aspects to be explored (Williams 1964). While some of these studies did not find any positive effect of origin/ethnic matching (Axinn 1989;Dotinga et al 2005), others reported positive results (Johnson et al 2000;Oyinlade and Losen 2014;Webster 1996). A second major component is matching with regard to educational levels.…”

Exploring Factors to Build Rapport Between Interviewer and Respondent: Insights From the National Research on Domestic Violence Against Women in Turkey

“…Interviewer impact on survey cooperation and response quality have been examined and assessed in recent studies (Durrant et al, 2010;Oyinlade and Losen, 2014;Vercruyssen, Wuyts and Lossveldt, 2017). Age, gender, education, experience and interviewer expectations are most studied interviewer characteristics when investigating interviewer impact on survey participation (Amos, 2018;Hansen, 2006;Hox, De Leeuw and Kreft, 1991;Lipps and Lutz, 2010;Pickery et al, 2001;Singer, Frankel and Glassman, 1983 other hand, as Durrant et al (2010) suggested, there are limited surveys that collect detailed information on interviewers and the limitation leads to lack of studies that investigate interviewer variance.…”