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The University of Southampton
Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute

Fieldwork Effort, Response Rate and the Distribution of Survey outcomes: a multi-level meta-analysis Seminar

Time:
15:45
Date:
22 May 2014
Venue:
Building 06 Room 1077

For more information regarding this seminar, please email Dr Ben Parker at B.M.Parker@southampton.ac.uk .

Event details

Research seminar series

As fieldwork agencies devote ever greater resources to mitigate falling response rates in face-to-face interview surveys, the need to better understand the relationship between level of effort, response rate, and nonresponse bias grows ever more pressing. In this study we assess how response rates and outcome distributions change over the number of calls made to a household. Our approach is comprehensive rather than selective: we analyse change in the response distribution over repeated calls for nearly 400 survey variables, across four different major surveys in the UK. The four surveys cover different topic areas and have response rates which vary between 54% and 76%. Comparisons are made for both unweighted and post-stratified estimates. We code each question on a number of different attribute dimensions to produce a broad typology of question types and then analyse nonresponse bias (defined as the difference between the point estimate at call n and the final response distribution for the full sample) within a multi-level meta-analytic framework, where estimates of bias are nested within calls and within questions, and questions are nested within surveys. This approach enables us to model how estimated bias varies systematically as a function of call number (fieldwork effort), question type, and survey topic as well as interactions between these characteristics. In addition to contributing to our understanding of how fieldwork effort is related to nonresponse bias, our study also includes an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of additional fieldwork effort at different points in the fieldwork cycle.

Speaker information

Professor Patrick Sturgis ,Professor of Research Methodology

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