Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Structured Interviewing I: Questionnaires 271
During the past 12 months since July 1st 1987, were there any times when you
didn’t actually see the doctor but saw a nurse or other medical assistant working
for the doctor?
During the past 12 months since July 1st 1987, did you get any medical advice,
prescriptions, or results of tests over the telephone from a medical doctor,-
nurse, or medical assistant working for a doctor? (Cannell et al. 1989, appendix
A:1, cited in Schaeffer and Presser 2003:71)
If you ask: ‘‘How long have you lived in Mexico City?’’ does ‘‘Mexico
City’’ include the 20 million people who live in the urban sprawl, or just the
eight million who live in the Federal District? And how ‘‘near’’ is ‘‘near Nairobi’’?
Words like ‘‘lunch,’’ ‘‘community,’’ ‘‘people,’’ and hundreds of other innocent
lexical items have lurking ambiguities associated with them, and phrases
like ‘‘family planning’’ will cause all kinds of mischief. Half the respondents
in the 1985 General Social Survey were asked if they agreed that there was
too little spending for ‘‘assistance to the poor,’’ while half were asked if there
was too little spending for ‘‘welfare.’’ A whopping 65% agreed with the first
wording; just 19% agreed with the second (Smith 1987:77).
Even the word ‘‘you,’’ as Payne pointed out (1951), can be ambiguous. Ask
a nurse at the clinic ‘‘How many patients did you see last week?’’ and you
might get a response like: ‘‘Who do you mean, me or the clinic?’’ If the nurse
is filling out a self-administered questionnaire, she’ll have to decide for herself
what you had in mind. Maybe she’ll get it right; maybe she won’t.
2. Use a vocabulary that your respondents understand, but don’t be condescending.
This is a difficult balance to achieve. If you’re studying a narrow population
(sugar cane cutters, midwives, leather workers), then proper ethnography and
pretesting with a few knowledgeable informants will help ensure appropriate
wording of questions.
But if you are studying a more general population, even in a small town of
just 3,000 people, then things are very different. Some respondents will
require a low-level vocabulary; others will find that vocabulary insulting. This
is one of the reasons often cited for doing personal interviews: You want the
opportunity to phrase your questions differently for different segments of the
population. Realize, however, that this poses risks in terms of reliability of
response data.
3. Remember that respondents must know enough to respond to your questions.
You’d be surprised at how often questionnaires are distributed to people who are
totally unequipped to answer them. I get questionnaires in the mail and by e-mail
all the time, asking for information I simply don’t have.