Metodologiczne problemy wywiadów socjologicznych (Niektóre problemy empirycznego badania socjologicznego)

Abstract

The author presents a model of an interview situation and the ensuing programme of methodological research on interviewing as a communication process in the full social, political and cultural context. The research reported below is the first step in the direction of realization of such a programme. On the occasion of the survey conducted in villages of Slovakia in 1966 on agricultural cooperatives a simultaneous methodological research was undertaken whose purpose was to investigate, among other things, respondents’ attitudes towards the role of a interviewer and their agreement to give interviews. The basic materials included: (1) 1714 methodological reports prepared by interviewers on as many interviews constituting a sub-sample from among all 2911 interviews made; (2) data on respondents taken from interview schedules; (3) data on interviewers taken from fill-in questionnaires given to them. Depending on the kind of respondent-interviewer rapport as described in interviewers’ reports, three basic attitudes toward the role situation have been distinguished: A = positive acceptance, on the part of a respondent, of the role prescribed to interviewers (that of "a scientific collaborator of the Slovakian Academy of Sciences”), B = neutral role acceptance characterized by respondent’s indifferent or ambiguous attitudes toward the interviewer, C = negative role acceptance consisting in "a bad” or "not very good” respondent-interviewer rapport. Various possible patterns of percentage distribution of these three basic attitudes, called "Role Acceptance Effects” (RAE), are distinguished. The pattern found in the sub-sample turned out to be "a prevailing positive RAE”, i.e. such one in which A>B+C; B0 and C0. (Actual percentages were: A=56.25%, B=36.75%, C=7.00%). This pattern appeared in all the regions of Slovakia. The factor most strongly influencing the RAE was the sex of interviewers: men were obtaining always a much higher percentage of cases of positive role acceptance (A) while women were meeting much more frequently with a neutral role acceptance (B); as a result, in the case of female interviewers there appeared the "neutral trend RAE”, in which B<A+C; B>A and B>C. (Actual percentages: A=37.73%, B=46.36%, C=15.91%). Additional finding was that a low positive role acceptance (A) occurs more often in the case of female respondents. A very strong positive correlation appeared between the education of respondents and their role acceptance: the higher the education, the higher the percentage of A. Age did not influence considerably upon the role acceptance. There appeared a strong influence of the degree of role acceptance upon: (1) agreement to give an interview, (2) eagerness to be interviewed.