The Charles Cannell Fund in Survey Methodology

The Charles Cannell Fund in Survey Methodology of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan was established by students, colleagues and friends of Charlie to honor him as a mentor and to further research and training on the interviewer-respondent interaction and its effects on the validity and quality of survey data.

Overview

In making awards, special emphasis will be placed on efforts to develop social psychological theories, test hypotheses and techniques derived from these theories, and develop techniques for measuring and improving the interaction between the respondent and the interviewer. Preference will be given to proposals that examine respondent and interviewer behavior as opposed to inferring the behavior based on statistical analysis. Possible uses of the funds include, but are not limited to, support related to dissertation research by a graduate student, small experimental studies by graduate students or junior researchers, or visiting scholars conducting related research. Special attention will be given to activities that will produce results that are visible in the field and that will attract or sustain interest in research related to the interaction between the interviewer and the respondent. Awardees will be invited to present findings from their research to the research staff of the Survey Research Center.

Eligibility

Junior researchers, including Graduate Students, Assistant Research Scientists, Assistant Professors, Research Investigators, and Postdoctoral Fellows are eligible. Other things being equal, preference will be given to graduate students for research or training carried out at the University of Michigan.

Application Procedure

View/download application guidelines (PDF 28K)

Cannell Fund Committee Members

• Fred Conrad, University of Michigan
• Floyd Fowler, University of Massachusetts Boston
• Frauke Kreuter, University of Maryland
• Nancy Mathiowetz, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, chair
• Nora Cate Schaeffer, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Cannell Fund Recipients and Their Projects

2011-2012

Brady West's research, "The Error Properties of Interviewer Observations and their Implications for Nonresponse Adjustment of Survey Estimates," attempts to fill in some of the gaps left by nonresponse. West received his Ph.D. in Survey Methodology from the Univeristy of Michigan in 2011. He is now an Assistant Research Professor in the Survey Methodology Program and an Assistant Research Scientist at the Center for Statistical Consultation and Research at the University of Michigan.

Jessica Broome is in her third year of the Program in Survey Methodology Ph.D. program. Her research concerns telephone interviewers' differential success in recruiting potential respondents, and, in particular, how their vocal and verbal attributes might affect this. Broome expects to receive her doctorate in 2012.

2010-2011

Rebecca Rosen's research, "Effects of mode, mood, and interviewer on self-report of sensitive behavior and psychological distress," seeks to assess the effect of mood and interviewer characteristics when face-to-face interviews are conducted about sensitive issues. Her study focuses on depressed college students and will be carried out at the New School for Social Research. Rosen is a Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at the New School and expects to receive her doctorate in April 2011.

Ashley Bowers's research, "An Investigation of the Effects of Job Attitudes on Interviewer Turnover and Quality of Job Performance in U.S. and Canadian Centralized Telephone Interviewing Facilities," is an initial step to fill the gap in the understanding of the effects of interviewer job attitudes on job outcomes as well as the cost and data quality of the data collected. Her research design includes both a quantitative phase and a qualitative phase to study these effects in several centralized telephone interviewing facilities. Bowers expects to receive her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan Program in Survey Methodology in 2012. She is currently the Director of the Center for Survey Research, and a Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.

2009 - 2010

Stephanie Eckman's dissertation, "Errors in Housing Unit Listing and Their Effects on Survey Estimates," (PDF 924K) explores the mechanisms of error in interviewer created housing unit listing, using original data collection in conjunction with the National Survey of Family Growth. Eckman received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland's Joint Program in Survey Methodology in 2010. She is currently employed as a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg, Germany.

Ipek Bilgen's research, "Is Less More & More Less...? The Effect of Two Types of Interviewer Experience on 'Don't Know' Responses in Calendar and Standardized Interviews," (PDF 2 MB) explores the effect of retrieval strategies on item non-response across different interviewing techniques, evaluates the effect of interpersonal communication dynamics on item non-response across different interviewing techniques, and appraises the influence of survey-specific interviewer experience on interviewers' behavior and perception change which cause the interviewer failure to probe across different interviewing techniques. Bilgen received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and is currently a Survey Methodologist with NORC at the University of Chicago. She presented "The Effect of Interviewer Experience on Item Non-Response: A Verbal Behavior Study" (PDF 283K) at AAPOR in 2011.

2008 - 2009

Matthew Jans's dissertation, "Can Speech Cues and Voice Qualities Predict Item Nonresponse and Inaccuracies in Answers to Sensitive Questions," (PDF 2MB) explores the impact of speech and voice quality (change in pitch, pauses and repairs) on the quality of responses to sensitive questions in surveys. Jans received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan Program in Survey Methodology in 2009. He presented "Using Respondent Verbal Paradata to Predict Income Nonoresponse: How They Say it Can Predict What They'll Say," (PDF 303KB) at AAPOR in 2010. Jans is currently employed as a Social Science Analyst in the Center for Survey Measurement at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Brooke Foucault's research will use a series of studies to explore rapport between the interviewer and the respondent. Her goal is to develop a more robust understanding of rapport, including a detailed understanding of which components and surface-level behaviors increase socially desirable responses. In 2009, she and her colleagues presented "Nonveral Correlates of Survey Rapport" (PDF 90KB) at AAPOR. Foucault is a Ph.D. student in Northwestern University's School of Communications, Program Media, Technology and Society.

2007 - 2008

Rachel Davis's dissertation, "Whatever it Means to You: Ethnicity, Language, and the Survey Response in Telephone-Administered Health Surveys of African Americans," (PDF 475KB) explores the impact of race and ethnic identity on health survey data, interviewer race preferences, and ratings of interviewers among African American telephone survey respondents. Davis received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education in 2008. She is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Human Nutrition Program, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan. Research publications based on her Cannell funded research include "Preferences for Interviewer Dialect Use and Race among African American Health Survey Respondents" (PDF 192K) and "Interviewer Effects in Public Health Surveys."

Laura Lind's research, "The Use of Animated Agents in Surveys: How Does Manipulating the Level of Animation and Interactivity of a Computerized Interviewing Agent Affect Respondents Answers to Sensitive Survey Questions" is a lab-based experimental study of how respondents answers to sensitive survey questions are affected by four different modes of survey administration (A-CASI administration, low-end animated agent, high-end animated agent and traditional face-to-face interviews). Lind received her Pd.D. from the New School for Social Research in Cognitive, Social, & Developmental Psychology in 2008.

2006-2007

No awards were made.

2005 - 2006

David Wilson's research, "An Experimental Approach to Estimating Race of Interviewer Effects in Telephone Interviews," is an experimental study of how the perception of interviewer's race in telephone surveys affects responses to different kinds of interview content. Wilson received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2005 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. "Statistical Profiles of Race of Interviewer Perceptibility in National Surveys" (PDF 96K) is based on Wilson's work funded by the Cannell Fund.

Lindsay Benstead is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. "Effects of Interviewer Gender and Hijab on Gender-Related Survey Responses: Findings from a Nationally-Representative Field Experiment in Morocco" (PDF 373K) was made possible in part by the award from The Cannell Fund.

Jennifer Dykema received support for digitizing tape-recordings of interviewer-respondent interactions that will allow her to continue her research on how these interactions affect the quality of survey responses. Dykema received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Sociology in 2004. She is currently an Associate Research Scientist at the University of Wisconsin Survey Center.

2004 - 2005

Patrick Ehlen's research, "The Dynamic Role of Some Conversational Cues in the Process of Referential Alignment," focuses on conceptual alignment in answers to survey questions, or how well the concept held by the respondent matches that intended by the designer of the question. The goal is to identify speech behaviors that might indicate conceptual misalignment in order to improve the question-and-answer process. Ehlen is now working on the telephone survey implications of the widespread use of mobile phones in the United States. "Cellular-only Substitution in the United States as Lifestyle Adoption: Implications for Telephone Survey Coverage" was published in Public Opinion Quarterly in 2007, and Ehlen gave a presentation (PDF 112K) of similar research in September, 2008 at the DC AAPOR Workshop. At the 2008 Annual AAPOR Conference, Ehlen presented, "Predicting Survey Bias in a Brave New Mobile World: Using the Behavioral Theory of Lifestyle Adoption to Model and Predict Cellular-Only and New Communications Technology Substitution Coverage in the US" (PDF 112K). Patrick Ehlen is currently a Research Scientist at the Human Computer Interaction Lab at AT&T Interactive Applied Research in San Francisco.

Frauke Kreuter's research, "Interviewer Effects as a Function of Respondents, Interviewer and Question Type," will develop a theoretical model to help identify, measure, and reduce interviewer effects in surveys by taking into account the interaction of the respondent, the interviewer, and the properties of the survey question. Kreuter is currently an Assistant Professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland.