1. The European Statistical Training Programme (ESTP)

2. Chapter 7: Reducing nonresponse
Handbook: chapter 3
Introduction
Main causes of nonresponse
Theories for survey participation
Methods to reduce nonresponse

3. Introduction What to do about the nonresponse problem?
Prevent it from happening in the field
Nonresponse reduction
Before and during fieldwork
Correct estimates for possible bias
Nonresponse adjustment
After the data have been collected
Nonresponse reduction:
Why do persons not participate?
How can this be prevented?

4. Main causes of nonresponse
Not able (due to language problems)
Non-contact
Refusal
Not able due to language problems mostly occurs among nonnative persons.
Non-contact can be caused by various reasons. Groves and Couper (1998) present a model relating contact to three causes:
At-home pattern
Physical impediments
Call pattern
Refusals are different; this is a conscious decision.

5. Theories for survey participation
Social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Dillman, 1978; Goyder, 1987)
Cost-benefit analysis resulting in a rationale decision
Leverage-salience theory (Groves et al., 2000)
Theory of interaction between survey design features and sociodemographic characteristics of the respondent.
Interviewer can make attributes more salient, thereby (positively) influencing the participation decision.
Groves, Cialdini and Couper (1992): Three components that influence survey participation
Sociodemographic and survey design features
Respondent-interviewer interaction
Tailoring and maintaining interaction

6. Influences of socio-demographic and survey design features
Socio-demographic factors
Number of surveys conducted in society
Perceived legitimacy of surveys
Attributes of the survey design
Mode of data collection
Length of the interview
Length of fieldwork period
Survey topic
Attributes of the interviewer
Socio-demographic attributes
Expectations
Experience

7. Respondent – interviewer interaction
Social psychological research areas:
Compliance
Helping tendency
Opinion change
Cialdini (1988) specifies 6 compliance principles
Reciprocation
Consistency
Social validation
Authority
Scarcity
Liking

8. Respondent – interviewer interaction
Helping tendency
‘norm of social responsibility’ or helping norm
Emotional state of respondent
Opinion change
Distinguish between systematic and heuristic decision processes
Systematic: review of intrinsic features
Heuristic: extrinsic features
Decision to participate in a survey usually heuristic

9. Tailoring and maintaining interaction
Adapting the approach to the sample element
Maintaining interaction
Maximising the probability to obtain cooperation from each sample element (probability sampling)
Maximise the number of acceptances per time unit (quota sampling)
Be able to apply more tailoring techniques

10. Methods to reduce nonresponse
Language problems:
Multilingual interviewers
Translating questionnaires
Having a family member act as interpreter
Non-contact
Increase the number of contact attempts
Longer fieldwork period
Lower the interviewer workload
Evening calls more profitable than daytime calls
Make contact in a different mode
Sending a reminder
Personalizing the letter of invitation
Mentioning the duration of the survey

11. Methods to reduce nonresponse
Refusals
Advance letter
Incentive
Interviewer training
Mixed-mode data collection
Proxy respondents

12. Mixed-mode data collection
Every mode has its weaknesses and its strengths
CAPI: expensive, good quality data
CATI: cheaper, but not every person has a telephone
Mixing modes provides an opportunity to compensate for weaknesses of the individual modes
Interviewer
No interviewer
Paper
PAPI
Mail-survey
Laptop
CAPI
CASAQ
Telephone
CATI
Voice response
Internet
CAWI
Web-survey

13. Mixed-mode designs
A mixed-mode design consists of a combination of two or more data collection modes
Three possibilities:
Concurrent
Sequential
Choice to the respondent