Extraneous Effects of Race, Gender, and Race-Gender Homo- and Heterophily Conditions on Data Quality

This study comprehensively investigated the differences in responsepatterns of interview respondents by race, gender, and race-gender of both respondentsand interviewers, to assess the impacts of response inconsistencies on data qualityduring survey interviews. The study focused only on Blacks and Whites in variousinterview phily matches. Interviewees (N = 491) responded to fully structured,closed-ended questions through direct interviews on support for affirmative action, andsupport for the 2009 America’s Affordable Health Choices Act as dependent variables.Findings showed various amounts of response differences to both dependent variables bydifferences in race, gender, and race-gender of respondents, vis-à-vis those of theinterviewers’, thereby constituting various amounts of data inconsistencies. The effectsof race, gender, and race-gender of both interviewers and respondents constitutepotential nonrandom errors that must be controlled in interview survey research,otherwise, research findings and conclusions may diverge from true relationships betweenvariables