Is it Self-Administration if the Computer Gives You Encouraging Looks?

The movie Kinsey opens with a scene of the great sex researcher being interviewed by one of his students. During the course of the interview, Kinsey not only reveals some surprising facts about his own sexual history, but also takes the opportunity to train the student in the fine art of interviewing. Much of the training concerns body language – eye gaze is important to indicate that you are listening, sitting far away creates a perception of distance, frowning will prevent the subject from relaxing. Kinsey's unfortunate student, however, has a hard time controlling his nonverbal behavior as the interview delves more and more deeply into the personal life of his mentor. Survey researchers have long worried about the unconscious effects of interviewer appearance, including nonverbal behaviors such as these, on the responses of survey interviewees. For this reason (as well as to reduce costs) various communication technologies that allow partial or total self-administration of the interview have been adopted by survey researchers in attempts to objectify the survey process. Self-administered paper and pencil questionnaires, the telephone, computer assisted self interviews and then the Web survey have been thought to hold the answer to the sorts of bias that might be introduced into surveys by the effects of the face-to-face contact of two humans in conversation. The telephone transmits only voice information about the interviewer, and other methods (in the text format most often used to present questionnaires) removes the interviewer altogether. A paradox exists, however, in the debate surrounding the use of these technologies. On the one hand, many researchers continue to