Tuesday 16th July
Wednesday 17th July
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Not able to participate: a neglected cause of nonresponse 2 |
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| Convenor | Dr Ineke Stoop (SCP) |
| Coordinator 1 | Mr Achim Koch (GESIS) |
| Coordinator 2 | Dr Hideko Matsuo (KU Leuven) |
There are two main causes of survey nonresponse: refusal and noncontact. It can also happen that a person is not able to participate because of language problems, or because someone is mentally or physically not able to participate. Sometimes "being unable" is the consequence of design aspects (someone who cannot hear cannot participate in a telephone survey, and someone who is blind cannot complete a paper questionnaire). In these cases practical solutions can be found. In other cases someone may not be able to answer survey questions for more general reasons: persons with severe learning disabilities may not be able to participate in a general survey whatever the mode. They may however be able to participate in a survey that has especially been designed to accommodate these groups.
Not being able to participate is usually assumed to be a minor factor in survey nonresponse and the bias caused by this is usually assumed to be small. In the European Social Survey, however, the share of persons not being able to participate cannot be ignored in a number of countries.
We invite submissions that address : a) the measurement of reasons for nonparticipation, b) the relationship with design issues (survey mode, sampling frame) and reasons for nonparticipation, c) ways to minimise nonparticipation due to not being able (and potential effects on measurement error and comparability), and d) effects of "not able" on nonresponse bias.
The research about non-response is extensive, and has given us a lot of knowledge about the factors that are effecting response rates. We know for instance that advance letters, trust in the research institute and the sponsor, characteristics of interviewers, survey subject, incentives and so on can influence the response rate in different ways.
The knowledge about the processes behind these factors is however more limited. There are theoretical ideas concerning the respondents' decision-making (for example, social exchange theory or leverage-salience theory) but, in practice, they can be difficult to apply or evaluate in experimental research. How do non-respondents think, reason and feel when they are making their decision not to participate in a survey? In order to get a deep understanding of the decision making process and of the thoughts and feelings of the non-respondents, we decided to approach the problem with a qualitative strategy. Through the use of in-depth interviews with different types of non-respondents it is possible to reach the underlying knowledge we are searching for. The interviews give access to the persons' own picture and perspectives and through a qualitative analyze of the interviews can we get a deeper understanding of the reasons for refusal.
This study is a part of Statistics Sweden's ongoing work with the non-response problem.
The presentation will include a reflection on the value of a qualitative strategy in non-response research and give a summary of our most interesting findings and results.
The aim of this paper is to look at the issue of nonresponse and self-selection bias in the context of a family study on daily family life. Data on the participating families and refusers were gathered as part of the wider Palette study in which questionnaires and diaries were used as data collection methods. On the basis of these data (N = 208 participating families and 119 refuser families), we profile the families left outside the study. The parents who declined to participate in the Palette study were asked to fill in a short refusal form which included questions concerning their family background and reasons for refusal, and they were also asked to write freely about their everyday life. We found the refuser families to have less educated mothers and more children than the participating families. The most usual reasons for refusal were lack of time and demandingness of the study. On the basis of a qualitative analysis we identified four patters of daily family life described by refusers. Daily family life was described as "filled with alternating ups and downs", "demanding and difficult to cope with", "new and exceptional", and "regular and well-functioning". The challenges of reaching non-participants, recommendations for minimizing nonresponse and the generalizability of the findings are discussed.
The data from follow-up surveys conducted since 2004 among non-respondents in the European Social Survey in Poland indicate that lack of time is the most common and the fastest-growing cause of non-response. This holds true for both refusals and non contacts. This phenomenon may be driven by both subjective and objective time pressure. In our paper, we show how objective time pressure arising from paid work is affects respondents' accessibility. Our analyses concern three aspects of the work burden: the total number of working hours (including extra work), regular versus irregular working time and time spent commuting to another town/city. In this paper we also show how accessibility is connected with responses to opinion questions and how the objective workload is related to the subjective workload and the stress arising from reconciling paid employment and family chores.
The data about objective workload were collected using additional questions placed in the Polish questionnaire in ESS rounds 5 and 6. The ESS 6 data are used to verify the findings from analysis conducted on the ESS 5 data.
The aim of the presentation proposed is to examine the response rate of non-autochthonous population in the International Social Survey Program annual surveys carried out in Spain from 2008 to 2011, looking at the comparison of response rates of each of the sub-groups (autochthonous vs. non-autochthonous population). Previous research has pointed out at the generally lower response rate among immigrant/non- autochthonous population, mostly due to the lower contact-rate with this latter group.
Even though the situation in Spain is not one in which no sample frame exists to sample immigrants, since there is a Population Register (Padrón), biases in the response process occur and have a different impact among autochthonous and non-autochthonous population. This, in turn, influences the quality of the data obtained in national surveys, regarding the goal of achieving an adequate representation of non-autochthonous population, which tends to be underrepresented in these surveys.
The specific causes on non-response (lack of contact, language barriers, refusals, inaccuracy of sample frame, and so on) will be analysed and compared in the different surveys under examination. The two last annual surveys (2010 and 2011 modules) included a set of questions on the reasons why respondents had decided to participate in the survey. The presentation will also explore the similarities and differences in these reasons between autochthonous and non-autochthonous population.