JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES VOLUME 33, NUMBER 4, 1977

Survey Methods for Minority Populations

Vincent Myers

Health Training Center, Los Angeles

The social survey, as the most widespread data-gathering device, has come under increasingly heavy fire from phenomenological sociologists, minority social scientists, and spokespersons for racial and ethnic minority populations at-large. These criticisms underscore the need for innovative ways of carrying out survey tasks. A large-scale drug- related survey is described, wherein unconventional assumptions and techniques were put into operation. The study was fielded by senior researchers and young blacks and Chicanos, who were given collegial responsibility for all phases of the inquiry. Based on the study, it is concluded that respondents who are poor and/or of racial or ethnic minority backgrounds require unconventional rules of survey proce- dure.

Interviewing respondents of minority and/or low-income backgrounds has been problematic for decades (Strauss & Schatz- man, 1955; Von Hoffman & Cassidy, 1956; Weiss, Bauman, & Rogers, 1973). And despite early warning about the indiscriminate application of survey techniques among populations with attributes which vary greatly from those of the researcher (Benney & Hughes, 1956), the conduct of survey research with socially distant re- spondents has not been altered very much (Myers, 1974). This being the case, minority surveys, surveys in general, and much of the theory and practice of social science research have come under increasingly heavy fire (Cicourel, 1964; Couchman, 1973; Douglas, 1970; Fien, 1971; Honigmann, 1969; Ladner, 1973;

This study was completed while the author was Director, Health Services Research and Evaluation, J-Squared, B-Squared Consultants, Inc., Los Angeles. I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of James Bates, Joseph Bates, Gene Levine, and especially Eleanor Carroll, Research Sociologist, National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Correspondence regarding this article may be addressed to V. Myers, California Department of Health, 11665 West Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064.

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Lyman, 1973; Manning, 1967; Phillips, 1971, 1973; Schutz, 1962, 1967; Sizemore, 1972; Wonder, 1972).

This is not to say that some survey analysts have not learned from their forays into socially distant populations (Schwartz, 1970; Weinberg, 1971), or that suggestions for improving surveys have not been set forth (Sieber, 1973). Rather, these experiences and suggestions for change within the corpus of survey procedure have been largely ignored by conventional practitioners because of their own conceptual limitations as well as for institutionally legitimized reasons (Moore, 1973).

Even so, I have concluded that respondents who are poor and/or of racial or ethnic minority backgrounds should no longer be approached with what have become ordinary ways of carrying out survey tasks. My conclusion comes from my experiences as director of a large-scale drug-related survey which I conducted for the United States Department of Labor and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Myers & Bates, Note 1; Myers, 1977a, 197713). Throughout that inquiry, which involved young low-in- come black, Chicano, and Caribbean respondents as well as their nonminority counterparts, we forged techniques to take us beyond the ordinary, thereby repairing many of the deficiencies which those cited earlier believe to be inherent in conventional proce- dures. My aim here is briefly to describe what we did, and to discuss the ways in which this unconventional approach is respon- sive to criticisms which have been leveled at the community of conventional survey analysts.

THE SURVEY Our task was to secure 1797 interviews at 19 Job Corps centers

in 1 7 states, most of which interviews would be with minority youth. Given the respondent populations and the need to collect potentially volatile data about illicit substance ingestion, we pro- ceeded conceptually by weighing several issues: (a) What informa- tion will a poor, often minority, and youthful respondent, who may be suspicious and skeptical about research participation, reveal to a previously unknown interviewer? (b) How can communication be enhanced to reduce distortion by the respondent and interpre- tive error by the interviewer? (c) How can subtle attempts at response evasion be recognized and neutralized in the interview? (d) In what ways can respondents be convinced that their partici- pation in the inquiry is personally and socially valuable? (e) How can the overtones of a federal investigation into illicit behavior

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with possible retribution be dealt with? And (0 How can these constraints be overcome in an interview of limited duration?

Early on we concluded that most of these problems would be solved if young ex-Job Corps enrollees were recruited and given collegial responsibility for survey conceptualization, instru- ment development, interviewing, coding, and interpretation. Ac- cordingly, 125 ex-enrollees were recruited and, after long-term screening, nine (three black men, three black women, two Chicanos, and one Chicana, aged 17 to 24 years) completed the study.

Interviewer Selection

We conducted an initial interview with each applicant to explore verbal skills, demeanor, disposition toward authority, appearance, reactions to their Job Corps tenure, sensibility about ethnic differences, and experience with illicit substances. At the conclusion of the assessment applicants wrote a summary of the exchange which we used to determine their ability to synthesize and to report the experience accurately. We invited 40 of the applicants to join two groups formed to enable us to observe the candidates further.

For three weeks we held regular group sessions, but we left the candidates to themselves to establish cohesion. In the absence of any cues or norms for acceptable behavior they developed their own agendas which enabled us to acquire information about deeper levels of their experience and to establish judgments about each of them.

At the end of this period we explained our rationale. When the candidates expressed their irritation and frustration about having been under uncertainty, we explained that we both expect- ed and respected differences among the group participants but we would not tolerate any behavior which would jeopardize the survey. We emphasized that the most rigorous performance standards would be required during subsequent training and field work and that our role would be to facilitate, and, as appropriate, to correct behavior. The successful candidates would have to make independent decisions under unpredictable and stressful field conditions which would be addressed in the training sessions.

During this phase of selection, group meetings were held evenings and weekends to test the limits of their commitment. Only one rule was established: Lateness or failure to attend even one session would lead to immediate dismissal. Twenty candidates violated the rule or resigned, and, of those who remained, twelve were hired.

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Interviewer Training All along we relied heavily upon our experiences during

two years of previous involvement with the Job Corps to speculate about how social reality was and would be perceived and interpret- ed by our potential respondents. We drew the risky conclusion that the most functional interviews would be those conducted in a flexible manner by our youthful colleagues who would be thoroughly familiar with many varieties of verbal and nonverbal communication. They, as appropriate, would be required to carry out the interviews not only in standard English and standard Spanish, but also in varieties of Spanish (Chicano, Mexican, and Caribbean) and in black English. They would also have to interpret subtle behavioral cues and react to preserve rapport. And they would have to be trained to recover quickly when they made mistakes.

We attained these goals by taking our colleagues through three training phases concurrent with instrumentation. Because we knew that the field work would be done under extreme pressure, we concentrated during the first phase on teaching techniques for controlling frustration, stress, and arbitrary de- mands. We expected that intelligent, emotionally tough young people could undermine the survey by evading authority and minimizing their involvement, and although we had experienced the advantages of a defensive veneer in “street” environments, we knew our chances of completing the study were slim if we could not balance our authority with trust and personal involve- ment.

Toward the end of the first phase the trainees were given a draft of one series of items, which marked the beginning of instrumentation. We worked on other preliminary sections of the interview schedule together, and the trainees began to formu- late plausible opening gambits. Through these formulations they tackled the issue of quickly developing rapport. For example:

I am here . . . to find out how much the average corpsmember knows about drugs and feels about Job Corps. I am going to ask a few questions. You don’t have to answer them, but your answers will be appreciated. . . . To righteously come out and explain, we are trying to find out how you feel about Job Corps, and before you try to jive me and say you dig, I want to tell you I was in Job Corps too, and I know about the hassles. . . . But the only way we can change it for the better is to get truthful answers. If you have any questions or don’t understand something, just stop me and ask.

Phase two of the training came about when simulated inter-

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views among the group members got boring. Actual interviews were introduced by inviting volunteers from the surrounding black community to participate in our preparations. After that, each trainee interviewed three respondents at a local agency similar to the Job Corps which was interested in our work. Our review of the interview schedule pointed up gaps in dataand ambiguously recorded responses, which we then repaired through group discussion.

Final preparations for formal field work were completed during phase three, when we refined procedures through inter- views at two Job Corps centers in the southern and northeastern parts of the United States.

Instrumentation We developed an instrument that respondents could under-

stand. Deeper than ordinary levels of attitudinal, cognitive, and behavioral experience were to be explored, so the interview schedule could not sacrifice depth of information for breadth. It would have to be interesting to the respondents; it would have to be enticing to experienced drug users, but less experienced users and nonusers could not be intimidated. During all stages of instrumentation, our youthful colleagues were given final responsibility for item wording.

Most of the queries in the interviews which we conducted at the two centers prior to the formal field work were allowed free response. These data were analyzed, and response categories for the first two parts of the schedule were empirically derived. Accordingly, during the crucial first 20 minutes of an interview, close to a mundane conversation could occur and interviewers simply checked appropriate categories as the responses evolved. Moreover, the instrument became an extension of our colleagues:

I’ve been asking myself how I really feel about the instrument. Sometimes I hated it. It seemed like the most ridiculous thing there ever was . , . A lot of times . . . the instrument was not important because the interactions I was having with human beings were over- whelming , . . Aside from that, i t has always been to me, sacred. It’s kind of like a kid adopted and watched over as it grew. I can easily compare i t to a piece of clay that in the hand of an artist can be shaped and formed into beauty. . . I guess that’s what’s so incredible about it . . . it allows you to reach far into a person during a n interview, but when it is coded, it limits you.

The Field Work Our data were collected under conditions that were more

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stressful than predicted at the outset of the selection and training. To summarize briefly (but see Myers, 1977c, for a more thorough description), the field work consisted of endless problems which taxed our endurance and concentration: continual expressions of racism and bigotry, mixups in travel arrangements, suspicion about the purpose of the inquiry, inadequate interviewing space, and other sources of siege. Even so, there were countless acts of consideration and the rewards of returning from the field intact with the sought-for data were pronounced.

As the study approached completion, our colleagues conclud- ed that they had remained with us to demonstrate to themselves, and to others as well, that they could attain goals ordinarily reserved for better-off, more highly educated, and more experienced researchers:

I wanted to see the outcome of this . . . I was one . . . who helped design the instrument. I owed it to myself to see the outcome of its quality, be it good O - bad, it’s ours. All along the rough road, it only made sense to hang in there . . . how else could you see the outcome?

DISC USSI o N

At the outset of this report, I noted that interviews with minority and /or low-income respondents have been continually troublesome, that the theory and practice of survey research (as well as much of social science research) have come under pro- nounced criticism, and that suggestions to modify the corpus of conventional survey procedure have not been very fruitful. On the first point, interviewing problems have been attributed by most investigators either to inherent attributes of the respond- ents, or, where indigenous interviewers have been utilized, to inherent deficiencies which interviewers bring to the inquiry.

The second point encompasses three major issues. First, it has been argued that the majority of social scientists proceed with assumptions and rely on methods which are more appropriate for the study and explanation of natural phenomena, and in doing so they ignore the common-sense structure of social reality as it is perceived, interpreted, and communicated among their research subjects. Second, where minority and low-income re- spondents are involved, researchers, most of whom are white with relatively high income, do not understand their respondents; therefore their inquiries yield distorted findings and conclusions. And third, conventional survey techniques are arguable because language variations among respondents, attempts by respondents

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to resist and evade the interviewer, the ways in which interviewers interpret responses, and differences in the ways queries are stated to respondents are rarely taken into account by survey analysts. Then too, stimulus standardization through rigidly prescribed interviewer roles is undermined by biases which are introduced into an exchange because interviewers and respondents react to each other’s presence in ways that are basic to common interaction, leading to de facto role violations.

On the last point, resistance to change is associated with assumptions by white practitioners that their concepts include all social realities and apply to all social settings. Further, conven- tional survey procedures are legitimized by funding agencies and the publishing gate keepers-editors and reviewers.

Throughout our inquiry, these criticisms served to legitimize our rationale to go beyond conventional survey procedures in several ways. At the beginning of the study, for example, we relied on our experience of several years among black collectivities to conclude that rather than the locus of interviewing problems being within minority and low-income respondents or indigenous intervicwers, it is more likely within conventional survey re- searchers and the techniques they employ. Then too, our familiar- ity led us to believe that properly selected and trained, youthful, minority colleagues could and should assume mzjor responsibility for the survey.

Due to our experiences, further, we were in a better position than the inexperienced, to identify our own limitations, to recog- nize the need for consultants equally familiar with the other groups under inquiry, to attract consultants with requisite knowledge and skills, and to gain their confidence and trust.

Next, we modified conventional survey phasing by relying on our colleagues to fashion the interview schedule and to specify field reality for us rather than the other way around. We then went way beyond the limits of conventional interviewer selection and training-which are ordinarily completed in a week or so-and our training goals included dynamic, natural, and fluc- tuating interviewing styles, rather than the typical rigid role-pre- scriptions. Thus done, our colleagues were instructed to conduct their interviews in the ways and the language which they decided were most appropriate once in the presence of their respondents, to turn natural reactions of the respondents to an advantage, and to pay particular attention to nonverbal communication.

Rather than concern ourselves about data falsification, which is usually handled through subsample validation, cheating became

18 VINCENT MYERS

dysfunctional for our colleagues because it was their own study. Last, with responsibility for coding and interpretation jointly held, we worked together to minimize distorted conclusions.

Over all our conceptual and procedural responses to the criticisms under review lead me to believe that rather than ignoring the common-sense structure of social reality among our respond- ents, we described it as thoroughly as possible and we anchored our study in common forms of respondent thought and expression. Having done so, as well as having been responsive to those who have argued for change within conventional survey theory and practice, we are less likely than the unresponsive survey analyst, to be susceptible to minority criticism.

C o N C L LISI o NS

Although the work reported here has concerned minority and low-income respondents, our unconventional course is proba- bly equally appropriate for research among nonminority, better- off populations. I think, further, that the real issue is the degree of social distance between the researcher and the respondents and that the greater the distance on whatever variable or sets of variables, the more appropriate are the methods here described.

This approach is clearly open to ongoing discussion, and although our assumptions and techniques are internally consistent, more precise conclusions about their efficacy and applicability are desirable. The requirement that one penetrate and understand deeper levels of respondent experience prior to conducting formal interviews presents formidable and complex problems-especially among more heterogeneous populations than our Job Corps enrollees. Solutions to these and the other issues described rest with ongoing refinement.

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