Specific interviewer characteristics, interviewer continuity, or matching
interviewer and household characteristics may increase cooperation, especially
for difficult-to-convince households. In face-to-face surveys, unobserved
heterogeneity often makes a proper analysis of interviewer effects
impossible. Although surveys conducted in telephone centers usually assign
households to interviewers at random, there is less research on interviewer
effects on cooperation, probably because telephone surveys produce
smaller effects. Using data from a large telephone panel survey, I find interviewer
effects only for households that refused to participate in a previous
wave. Interviewer continuity or matching interviewers and households on
sociodemographic variables has weak effects for any type of household.
Interviewer experience has positive effects for previously refusing households
only. Telephone survey organizations therefore only need to worry
about using specially trained interviewers for refusal conversion calls, while
specific assignments of interviewers to households are not necessary.