COMPARISON OF QUESTIONNAIRE RESPONSES WITH AND WITHOUT PRECEDING INTERVIEWS

REPORTS THE RESULTS OF A FIELD EXPERIMENT CARRIED OUT IN AN INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION TO TEST THE IMPACT ON FIXED-ALTERNATIVE QUESTIONNAIRE ANSWERS OF HAVING SOME RESPONDENTS BE INTERVIEWED BY A SERIES OF OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS COVERING THE SAME TOPICS PRIOR TO TAKING THE QUESTIONNAIRE. MORE NEGATIVE DATA WERE PROVIDED ABOUT PEER RELATIONS BY THOSE WHO WERE INTERVIEWED BEFORE DOING THE QUESTIONNAIRE THAN BY THOSE WHO WERE NOT. THIS FINDING HELD FOR BOTH LOW- AND HIGH-SKILL EMPLOYEES. THERE WAS NO DIFFERENCE IN THE DATA ABOUT SUPERIORS UNDER THE 2 METHODOLOGICAL CONDITIONS. 2 CONTINUA FOR EXPLAINING FIELD METHOD EFFECTS ON QUESTIONNAIRE VALIDITY ARE PROPOSED. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1968 American Psychological Association.