Interpenetrated Design

An interpenetrated survey design is one that randomly assigns respondent cases to interviewers. This is done to lower the possibility that interviewer-related measurement error is of a nature and size that would bias the survey's findings. This type of design addresses survey errors associated with the survey instrument and the recording of responses by the interviewer. One way to reduce subjective interviewer error is to develop a survey using an interpenetrated design—that is, by ensuring a random assignment of respondents to interviewers. Surveys employing an interpenetrated design, when such is warranted, will tend to reduce the severity of interpretation errors resulting from the conflation of interviewer bias with some other statistically relevant variable that might serve as a basis for assigning respondents. It will also ...