| Interviewer, Statement Taker, Enumerator
An interviewer is a person who conducts an interview either in person or on the telephone. The interviewer usually uses a questionnaire or statement form to conduct the interview. The term statement taker is used in cases when statements about human rights abuses are collected by non-governmental organisations. In the case of focus group discussions, the interviewer is called the facilitator or moderator, and recording the results of the interview may fall to a different person (the recorder). In the case of a census, where the entire population is interviewed, the interviewer is most often called an enumerator. In most other contexts, the term interviewer is used.
Interviewers must be trained in techniques that will limit interviewer bias. Interviewer bias is the intentional or unintentional prompting by an interviewer that affects the interviewee's response during an interview. Such prompting may lead to distorted results as a consequence of politeness, social acceptability or conflict avoidance [1]. Interviewers should also be trained in methods of persuasion, methods for asking sensitive questions, voice control, body-language control, and confidentiality in order to improve response rates.
1. See
www.fbinnovation.de/en/glossary/
(accessed 28 December 2006).
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