ABSTRACT
Essentially there are two basic forms of data collection: those with and those without an interviewer, in other words: interviews and self-administered questionnaires. Interview surveys can either be in person or over the telephone, and there is a large variation across countries in the usage of these methods. Countries with a high telephone penetration, like the United States, Canada and Scandinavia, use mainly telephone interviews and face-to-face interviews are only implemented when needed for special surveys or special populations. Other countries, which have a lower telephone penetration, rely on face-to-face surveys for the general population and employ telephone surveys successfully for special groups (e.g., elites). For a more in-depth discussion of face-to-face interviews, see Loosveldt (Chapter 11); for telephone interviews, see Steeh (Chapter 12). Self-administered questionnaires take many forms. They can be used in group settings, such as classrooms in educational research, or they can be used in more individual settings, such as the respondent’s home or office (see de Leeuw & Hox, Chapter 13). A well-known and frequently used selfadministered method is the mail survey (Dillman, 1978), but its computerized version the Internet survey (Lozar Manfreda & Vehovar, Chapter 14) is gaining rapidly in popularity.
