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Standardized interviewing (SI) and conversational interviewing are two approaches to collect survey data that differ in how interviewers address respondent confusion. This article examines interviewer–respondent interactions that occur during these two techniques, focusing on requests for and provisions of clarification. The data derive from an experimental study in Germany, where the face-to-face interviews were audio-recorded. A sample of 111 interviews was coded in detail. We find that conversational interviewers do make use of the ability to clarify respondent confusion. Although the technique improved response accuracy in the main study compared to SI, conversational interviewers seem to provide clarifications even when there is no evidence of respondent confusion. This may lengthen administration time and potentially increase data collection costs. Conversational interviewers also employ neutral probes, which are generally associated with standardized interviews, at an unexpectedly high rate. We conclude with suggestions for practice and directions for future research.

Respondent incentives are widely used to increase response rates, but their effect on nonresponse bias has not been researched as much. To contribute to the research, we analyze an incentive experiment embedded within the third wave of the German household panel survey “Panel Labor Market and Social Security” conducted by the German Institute for Employment Research. Our question is whether attrition bias differs in two incentive plans. In particular, we want to study whether an unconditional €10 cash incentive yields less attrition bias in self-reported labor income and other sociodemographics than a conditional lottery ticket incentive. We find that unconditional cash incentives are more effective than conditional lottery tickets in reducing attrition bias in income and several sociodemographic variables.

Face-to-face household surveys sometimes ask field interviewers to record observations about selected characteristics of all sampled housing units. Some surveys ask interviewers to record judgments about potential respondents to serve as proxy measures of key variables. Past studies have shown that these judgments are prone to error, which has negative implications for survey estimators in terms of the bias and variance introduced by nonresponse adjustments based on the judgments. Practical techniques for reducing these errors are therefore needed. This article analyzes an intervention implemented in the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth. The intervention was designed to provide field interviewers with observable predictors of a key auxiliary variable for which they were recording observations. The analysis shows evidence of a significant improvement in the quality of the observations. The article concludes with a discussion of directions for future work in this area.

Call scheduling is a challenge for surveys around the world. Unlike cross-sectional surveys, panel surveys can use information from prior waves to enhance call-scheduling algorithms. Past observational studies showed the benefit of calling panel cases at times that had been successful in the past. This article is the first to experimentally assign panel cases to previously beneficial call windows. The results from a large-scale national survey in Germany show modest efficiency gains measured in number of call attempts needed until first contact but no gains in efficiency to gain cooperation.