Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Reading Questions Verbatim


Art requires creativity and innovation based on a foundation of discipline.  A musician must master scales before he or she can improvise.  A painter must understand the color spectrum and geometric forms to create compelling abstract art.  An interviewer needs to be able to read verbatim in order to gather useful information.

Several years ago I devised a mock survey questionnaire to use for screening applicants for telephone interviewer positions.    Research and my own experience showed that interviewers need continual supervision and coaching to consistently read survey questionnaires verbatim.  I needed to do something that would help me hire interviewers who already have the ability to read verbatim.

Reading survey questions exactly as they are written is important because changing the wording of a question can change the meaning of a question. 
  •         Could you tell your boss to go jump in the lake?
  •         Would you tell your boss to go jump in the lake?
  •         Should you tell your boss to go jump in the lake?

 These three questions are very similar, but they are different questions.  I could tell my boss to go jump in the lake.  I am physically able to utter those words.  Would I?  It depends on the answer to the last question.  If an interviewer says “could” instead of “would” the interviewer has re-written the question.  If some respondents hear “could” instead of “would,” we would get answers to different questions when we think we are getting answers to the same question.  Our analysis of opinions would be inaccurate.

The interviewers I supervise generally do a good job of reading verbatim, but they are human beings.  If I could record myself reading survey questions verbatim and then let a voice recognition system call people to let them hear the questions I could reduce interviewer error.  Reducing interviewer error would help us deliver more accurate information to our clients while reducing the amount of money we spend on supervising and coaching interviewers to read verbatim.

An interviewer needs to be a robot when reading questions and a human being when listening to answers.  A voice recognition system would need to have an Artificial Intelligence component to be able to probe vague answers to open ended questions.  We will need disciplined interviewing artists until then.

John C. Stevens
Saperstein Associates
(614) 261-0065
jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com



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