Interviewer Effects in the Measurement of Personal Network Size

Theo van Tilburg
Additional contact information
Theo van Tilburg: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Sociological Methods & Research, 1998, vol. 26, issue 3, 300-328

Abstract: Methods for delineating personal networks in surveys contain complex instructions for the interviewers. It is assumed that the interviewers' experience and education influence their ability to follow these instructions. The magnitude of the interviewer effects on the personal network size has been investigated, and differences among interviewers have been explained on the basis of their experience and education. The data are from a survey among 4,059 older adults in the Netherlands interviewed in 1992 by 87 interviewers. A strong interviewer effect was observed. Furthermore, the results of a multilevel regression analysis showed that, controlled for respondent characteristics, well-educated interviewers with minor experience prior to the project and major experience within the project (i.e., the high sequence number of the interview) generated relatively large networks.

Date: 1998
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124198026003002 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:somere:v:26:y:1998:i:3:p:300-328

DOI: 10.1177/0049124198026003002

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Sociological Methods & Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().