Do Positive Mass Communications Help SIPP Interviewers Succeed?

Oregon Convention Center 

Research has shown that survey interviewers need more morale boosts and opportunities to improve their competencies. The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) emailed a series of informative and positive messages to their interviewers with the intent of keeping their interviewers engaged in the survey data collection. The SIPP is a longitudinal annual household government computer assisted person interview (CAPI) survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, where SIPP interviewers interview sample primarily in person and self-manage their workloads.

The SIPP is a challenging survey to field. While these emails do not make the survey any less challenging, these emails are designed to establish more intrinsic value in the work they do with the hopes that that will put them in a better position to succeed. Specifically, this research explores if the emails lead to more interviewers meeting their intermittent progress goals and uses time series methods to analyze if the emails sent led to any significant changes into how they work their cases.

data collection

email

interviewer morale

CAPI

longitudinal survey 

Survey Research Methods Section