NJIT CIS475 Lesson 5: Interviewing

Each question has only one best answer. Circle clearly the letter of the best answer. If you make a mistake, cross out the circle, and write the letter in capitals next to the question. If a question has both a capital letter and is circled, the letter will be considered to be the answer.

 

1.     Sara decides she needs comparable data from two groups of informants. She asks each informant to respond to nearly identical sets of questions. What kind of interviewing is Sara doing?

a.     Unstructured interviewing

b.     Structured interviewing

c.      Informal interviewing

d.     Semi-structured interviewing

e.     Casual interviewing

 

2.     What are some of the things you need to do before beginning an interview?

a.     Ask permission to record the interview and to take notes.

b.     Tell people that you are trying to learn from them.

c.      Assure people of anonymity and confidentiality.

d.     Tell people exactly what kinds of responses you expect to hear from them.

e.     a, b and c.

 

3.     Good interviewers know how to get a respondent to provide more information without leading the respondent in any particular direction. What are these interviewing techniques called?

a.     Queries.

b.     Probes

c.      Rapport

d.     Confidence

e.     None of the above.

 

4.     Josh has been interviewing for a long time and has grown accustomed to lulls in an interview. He often uses this to his advantage and simply nods and waits to see if informants have more to add to the topic at hand. What is this technique called?

a.     Baiting

b.     Uh-huh probe

c.      Tell-me-more probe

d.     Echo probe

e.     Silent probe

 

5.     Jim keeps informants talking just by using affirmative comments, such as “I see.” What kind of probing is he using?

a.     Baiting

b.     Uh-huh probe

c.      Tell-me-more probe

d.     Echo probe

e.     Silent probe

 

6.     When should you tape record an interview?

a.     In all interviews

b.     In interviews where you think you might leave out something important

c.      In informal (hanging-out) interviews.

d.     In all structured and semi-structured interviews except when people ask you not to.

e.     It depends on how good a note taker you are.

 

7.     When should a researcher consider collecting data from a focus group?

a.     When there is no sampling frame.

b.     At the beginning of the research when designing questionnaires

c.      When surveys are too expensive to conduct.

d.     At the end of the research to help interpret the results of surveys.

e.     b and d.

 

8.     Pam decides to use focus groups to study people’s perceptions of email. She was interested in how perceptions varied by age (young and old) and gender (male and female). She used a factorial design and created four types of focus groups (young men, old men, young women, and old women). She ran each of the four types of focus groups in 10 cities. Each focus group was composed of six participants. How many units of analysis does Pam have?

a.     2

b.     4

c.      10

d.     40

e.     240

 

9.     Kathryn wants to estimate the proportion of people in the country who feel strongly about spam. What kind of data collection should she use?

a.     Focus groups of men and women in rural towns.

b.     A series of focus groups of men and women from all over the country.

c.      A nationally representative survey.

d.     Semi-structured interviews from different parts of the country.

e.     Unstructured interviews from men and women around the country.

 

10.            In focus groups, a moderator’s job is to:

a.     Make sure that the discussion stays supportive and non-judgmental.

b.     Keep the discussion on the topic.

c.      Get people to open up and talk about the topic of interest.

d.     Lead people to particular answers.

e.     1, 2 and 3 only.

 

11.            About how much of what informants report about their behavior is inaccurate?

a.     1% - 5%

b.     10% - 20%

c.      25% - 50%

d.     50% - 75%

e.     More than 75%

 

12.            What are some of the techniques you can use to improve informant accuracy of self-reported data?

a.     Ask people to consult records.

b.     Give people a list of options and ask them to pick among the options.

c.      Ask people to recall behaviors relative to personal landmark events.

d.     Shorten the period of recall.

e.     All of the above.

 

13.            T F The big advantage of tape recording an interview is that you do not have to take notes.

a.     True

b.     False