Interviewer Attitudes Toward Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI

Abstract

Computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) is an increasingly popular method of data collection for large-scale household surveys of the general population. Despite its widespread use in the United States and abroad, little research has been done on the effect such a new technology may have on those people most directly involved in the process of data collection, the survey interviewers. This paper explores the attitudes of interviewers toward CAPI, both before and after initial experience with a particular CAPI implementation. The findings are examined in the light of both the more general computer attitudes on literature and recent reports from CAPI studies. Keywords: computer-assisted personal interviewing, survey data collection, inter viewers, computer attitudes.