Real Communication An Introduction

Appendix A   Competent Interviewing^505

For example, Eva is doing a telephone survey on student attitudes about parking

on campus. The students she calls want to know about the topic of the interview

and how long it will take (the task). They want to know something about her

and how the information she gathers will be used (the relationship). They want

to know how they (or someone else) will benefit from participating in the inter-

view (the motivation). Eva needs to plan what she can say or do at the start of the

interview that is responsive to these needs (see Table A.1).

The Questions

Once you have set the stage for the interview with an appropriate opening, you

need to develop the organizational plan for the body of the interview using

questions and answers. The interviewer sets up the structure of the interview by

identifying the purpose of the interview and how it will proceed. A response is

THINK

ABOUT

THIS

❶ Does your plan for a

survey of all graduates

present a more accurate

picture of the school than

a telephone survey with

only the wealthiest

graduates?

❷ What about students

who attended the school

but did not graduate or

who are not in the alumni

rolls? Would leaving them

out skew the results of

your survey as well?

❸ Does it really matter?

Remember, this survey is

for material to be used in

marketing. Do you think

students will infer that

quotes from very suc-

cessful graduates mean

that every student at the

school goes on to a high-

profile, six- or seven-figure

salary career?

Surveys: Interviewing at Large

Imagine that you are an officer in your college’s alumni association, and you

have been asked to interview other alumni in order to produce marketing

materials that will help increase the number and quality of students applying

to your school. Your association wants to show how much graduates enjoyed

their school experience and how well they have succeeded in their careers.

You produce a simple one-page survey that asks alumni to rate their

school and their postgraduate experience from poor to excellent, which you

plan to mail to everyone listed in the alumni register. You are hoping that once

all the responses have been tallied, you’ll be able to make declarative state-

ments in your marketing materials noting the high percentage of graduates

who rate their experience as “excellent.” But when you submit your plan and

a draft of the survey to the alumni association, you are shot down. “We don’t

want to hear from everyone,” says the alumni president. “We only want to

hear from successful graduates who are working at Fortune 500 companies

or who have made big names for themselves in the sciences.”

You are asked instead to create an in-depth survey and conduct it by

phone with graduates who have donated more than $1,000 to the school in

the past five years. You know that this will skew the results of your survey

toward former students who love the school and who have been financially

successful since graduating. The association is asking you to present this

information as though these students are representative of all students. But

you know that although the alumni association depends on successful and

wealthy graduates for support, such graduates represent a minority of the

students who have attended your school. You know that many students have

gone on to successful and fulfilling, if less lucrative, careers in education and

the arts. You are concerned that the skewed survey you are being asked to

conduct will not paint an accurate picture of the school for prospective stu-

dents. What are the ethical implications here?

EVALUATINGCOMMUNICATIONETHICS

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