Model and real situation interview made by social interviewers in local communities

The paper describes the interviewing methods in sample survey. The main topic deals with the analysis of the interviewers’ behaviour in selecting respondents in the light of theoretical principles and methodological directives. Methods of respondents’ selection in quota sampling and rules of interviewing have been worked out and tested in the western countries and in the USA in particular. One of the basic rules assumes that the interviewer is introduced to the respondent only in the role of a representative of a Research Institute. These rules have been accepted by Polish sociologists. It is important to know whether and to what extent methods worked out in different social and cultural conditions give satisfactory results also in Polish conditions. Polish Radio and Television Centre for Public Opinion Research and Programme Evaluation in Warsaw has a net of voluntary interviewers who select respondents (by means of quota sampling) in their own localities. Methodological instructions for the Centre interviewers are based on „imported” patterns to a certain extent adapted to polish conditions. Among other things the principle that the interviewer can only appear as a research worker is not strictly obeyed while interviews with the family and close acquaintances are not recommended. Methodological research carried out among the interviewers of the Polish Radio and Television Centre for Public Opinion Research and Programme Evaluation, whose results are presented in the paper, has shown that for interviewers acting in their own localities the condition of mutual anonymity between respondent and interviewer is very difficult to be observed. The typology of contacts between interviewers and respondents has proved that the principle of anonymity is observed by less than a half of the interviewers and it happens mostly in bigger towns. Interviewers carrying out research in villages and small towns have a small chance to preserve their incognito usually being well known by the people from their own milieu. It was also stated that about 20 per cent of the interviewers consciously select acquaintances as their respondents. When cases in which people refused their permission to be interviewed were analysed, it appeared that the conditions in which the interviewers of the Polish Radio and Television Centre work complete anonymity causes more difficulties in the research process and more frequent refusals than in those cases when the contacts between interviewers and respondents take place with their roles being well defined. From the above considerations there follows the conclusion that methodological principles in the organization of research by means of mass interviews should be adapted to the existing social conditions and circumstances in which the research takes place.