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From 1979 to 1996, the Survey of Consumer Attitudes response rate remained roughly 70 percent. But number of calls to complete an interview and proportion of interviews requiring refusal conversion doubled. Using call-record histories, we explore what the consequences of lower response rates would have been if these additional efforts had not been undertaken. Both number of calls and initially cooperating (vs. initially refusing) are related to the Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS), but only number of calls survives a control for demographic characteristics. We assess the impact of excluding respondents who required refusal conversion (which reduces the response rate 5–10 percentage points), respondents who required more than five calls to complete the interview (reducing the response rate about 25 percentage points), and those who required more than two calls (a reduction of about 50 percentage points). We found no effect of excluding any of these respondent groups on cross-sectional estimates of the ICS using monthly samples of hundreds of cases. For yearly estimates, based on thousands of cases, the exclusion of respondents who required more calls (though not of initial refusers) had an effect, but a very small one. One of the exclusions generally affected estimates of change over time in the ICS, irrespective of sample size.

This article is intended to supplement rather than replace earlier reviews of research on survey incentives, especially those by Singer (2002); Singer and Kulka (2002); and Cantor, O'Hare, and O'Connor (2008). It is based on a systematic review of articles appearing since 2002 in major journals, supplemented by searches of the Proceedings of the American Statistical Association's Section on Survey Methodology for unpublished papers. The article begins by drawing on responses to open-ended questions about why people are willing to participate in a hypothetical survey. It then lays out the theoretical justification for using monetary incentives and the conditions under which they are hypothesized to be particularly effective. Finally, it summarizes research on how incentives affect response rates in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies and, to the extent information is available, how they affect response quality, nonresponse error, and cost-effectiveness. A special section on incentives in Web surveys is included.

In this introduction to the special issue on \"Non-Response Bias in Household Surveys\" the editor traces the recognition of the impacts of nonresponse in statistical journals since the 1930s through to the present. A review of recent studies on nonresponse addresses Goyder's The Silent Minority (1987) & Brehm's The Phantom Respondents (1998). The theme for developing a theoretical framework that will allow predictions about whether the response rate was a good indicator of bias is established as a context for the subsequent articles. Themes addressed by the articles examine the relationship between survey of nonresponse & nonresponse bias in terms of topics salience & incentives, other issues of increasing of measurement error or bias, the problem of coverage rather than nonresponse, & the marked increase in telephone survey of nonresponse in relation to the proliferation of telephone calls by marketers & fundraisers. Although the new practices toward nonresponse may reassure consumers of the validity of estimates derived from low response rate surveys, the issues of validity are concluded to be worth the required investment of time and money for research. References. J. Harwell

This article uses survey respondents own reasons for participating or not participating in surveys, as well as experiments carried out over many years, to propose a benefit-cost theory of survey participation. The argument is that people choose to act, in surveys as in life, when, in their subjective calculus, the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs. The process of reaching a decision may be carefully reasoned or it may proceed almost instantaneously, with the aid of heuristics. But regardless of the process, the outcome depends on a judgment that the benefits of acting outweigh the costs of doing so - even if, objectively speaking, the actors are badly informed and their decision leads to an undesirable outcome. The article reviews research on confidentiality assurances and risk perceptions with reference to a benefit-cost theory of behavior, and concludes by suggesting research to test the theorys predictions and by drawing testable implications for survey practice.

A Telescope on Society seeks to convey the development of social science in the twentieth century through its interaction with a major new instrument for gathering data about society-survey research. The story of survey research and social science is largely told by social scientists affiliated with the Survey Research Center (SRC) and Institute for Social Research (IRS) at the University of Michigan about work done there. But the book also places this story in the broader context of survey-based social science in the United States and the world, to which many individuals and institutions beyond SRC, ISR, and Michigan have also contributed. The chapters of this volume illustrate the impact that developments in survey research have had and continue to have on a broad range of social science disciplines and interdisciplinary areas ranging from political behavior and electoral systems to macroeconomics and individual income dynamics, mental and physical health, human development and aging, and racial/ethnic diversity and relationships. The volume will speak to a wide audience of social science and survey research professionals and students interested in learning more about the broad history of survey-based social science and its contributions to understanding ourselves as social beings. It also seeks to convey how crucial institutional and public support are to the development of social science and survey research, as they have been to development in the natural, biomedical, and life sciences. The five editors of this book are longtime research professors and colleagues in the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. James S. House is also Professor in the Department of Sociology; F. Thomas Juster is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics; Robert L. Kahn is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology and Department of Health Management and Policy; and Howard Schuman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology; Eleanor Singer is Research Professor in the Survey Research Center, all at the University of Michigan. Professors House (1991-2001), Kahn (1970-76), and Schuman (1982-90) have each served as Director of the Survey Research Center; Professor Juster served (1976-86) as Director of the Institute for Social Research; and Professor Singer served (1999-2002) as Associate Director of the Survey Research Center.

Numerous surveys link interview data to administrative records, conditional on respondent consent, in order to explore new and innovative research questions. Optimizing the linkage consent rate is a critical step toward realizing the scientific advantages of record linkage and minimizing the risk of linkage consent bias. Linkage consent rates have been shown to be particularly sensitive to certain design features, such as where the consent question is placed in the questionnaire and how the question is framed. However, the interaction of these design features and their relative contributions to the linkage consent rate have never been jointly studied, raising the practical question of which design feature (or combination of features) should be prioritized from a consent rate perspective. We address this knowledge gap by reporting the results of a placement and framing experiment embedded within separate telephone and Web surveys. We find a significant interaction between placement and framing of the linkage consent question on the consent rate. The effect of placement was larger than the effect of framing in both surveys, and the effect of framing was only evident in the Web survey when the consent question was placed at the end of the questionnaire. Both design features had negligible impact on linkage consent bias for a series of administrative variables available for consenters and non-consenters. We conclude this research note with guidance on the optimal administration of the linkage consent question.

At intervals since 1990, the General Social Survey (GSS) has asked a series of four questions inquiring into knowledge of genetic testing and attitudes toward prenatal testing and abortion, most recently in 2010. The questions about prenatal testing and abortion were framed in terms of \"baby\". But in the current anti-abortion climate, it seemed possible that the word \"fetus\" would carry more abstract, impersonal connotations than \"baby\" and might therefore lead to different responses, especially in the case of abortion. To resolve this issue, we designed the question-wording experiment reported in this research note. We found no significant differences by question wording for abortion preferences in the sample as a whole and small but significant differences for prenatal testing, in a direction opposite to that expected. However, question wording did make substantial differences in the responses of some demographic subgroups.

This article reviews the history of Public Opinion Quarterly from 1972 through 1986, with brief discursions on its prehistory at Princeton and Columbia universities and some reflections on its present and future.

MONETARY INCENTIVES ARE INCREASINGLY used to help motivate survey participation. Research Ethics Committees have begun to ask whether, and under what conditions, the use of monetary incentives to induce participation might be coercive. The article reports research from an online vignette-based study bearing on this question, concluding that at present the evidence suggests that larger incentives do not induce research participants to accept higher risks than they would be unwilling to accept with smaller ones.

The capacity of pretest questionnaires to effectively correcting problems with survey questions is examined. Scrutiny of existing research failed to derive empirical support for the benefits of using conventional pretesting methods to identify problems with survey questions. It is noted that cognitive interviews have been employed for several decades to improve pre-testing effectiveness; however, it is stressed that cognitive interviews actually influence the data produced during such interactions. Attention is then dedicated to ascertaining the efficacy of alternative pretesting methods -- behavior coding, response times, participant debriefings, & respondents' assessment of relevant scenarios -- in strengthening survey questions. Several additional issues are considered: the use of statistical modeling (eg, latent class analysis) in ascertaining survey question problems; difficulties that may arise via electronic modes of survey administration; problems created when questionnaires are administered to populations with special needs; & the ability of revised questions to obtain improved data. Four suggestions for enhancing survey testing & evaluation are also offered, eg, determining how different testing methods affect survey costs. 67 References. J. W. Parker