Because survey response rates are consistently declining worldwide, survey researchers strive to obtain as much auxiliary information on sampled units as possible. Surveys using in-person interviewing often request that interviewers collect observations on key features of all sampled units, given that interviewers are the eyes and ears of the survey organization. Unfortunately, these observations are prone to error, which decreases the effectiveness of nonresponse adjustments based on the observations. No studies have investigated the strategies being used by interviewers tasked with making these observations, or examined whether certain strategies improve observation accuracy. This study is the first to examine the associations of observational strategies used by survey interviewers with the accuracy of observations collected by those interviewers. A qualitative analysis followed by multilevel models of observation accuracy show that focusing on relevant correlates of the feature being observed and considering a diversity of cues are associated with increased observation accuracy.

中文翻译：

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提高受访者对受访者特征的观察准确性的策略：来自美国全国家庭成长状况调查的证据。

由于全球范围内的调查响应率一直在下降，因此调查研究人员努力获得尽可能多的有关采样单位的辅助信息。考虑到访问者是调查组织的眼睛和耳朵，使用面对面访问进行的调查通常要求访问者收集所有抽样单位关键特征的观察结果。不幸的是，这些观察结果容易出错，从而降低了基于观察结果的无响应调整的有效性。没有研究调查负责进行这些观察的访调员所使用的策略，也没有研究某些策略是否可以提高观察的准确性。这项研究是首次研究调查访调员使用的观察策略与这些访调员收集的观察结果的准确性之间的联系。定性分析以及随后的观察精度多级模型表明，关注观察特征的相关性并考虑线索的多样性与提高观察精度有关。