Abstract:

Our contribution on the subject of interviewer variability is made in the spirit of the opening quotation made and endorsed by two leading authorities in the field: conscious that we can add only a small part to the fabric of knowledge, but conscious, too, that every contribution is of value which throws light on the crucial interface between interviewer and respondent. In fact, a review of the literature reveals interviewer variability to be a more shadowy, more elusive subject than one would expect, with the very existence of the phenomenon open to doubt.