Although it has long been acknowledged that interviewers play a crucial role in the survey data collection process, there is little research concerning interviewer effects on how respondents perceive the interview. We investigate whether interviewer effects exist regarding how much respondents report having enjoyed the interview and whether these…

This article analyzes whether response patterns in surveys differ between the general population, regular immigrants, and recent refugees. Analyses show that the address quality of refugees contacted in the first wave of a panel study is worse than that of the general population, but of a similar quality to that of other recent immigrants. Once…

Bias may be introduced in survey data collection when participants answer questions differently depending on interviewer gender. This could affect the validity of collected data, especially sensitive data. Using sexual behavior data collected in a 2017-2018 cross-sectional survey of Haitian women (n = 304), we evaluated the associations between…

Self-report is a fundamental research tool for the social sciences. Despite quantitative surveys being the workhorses of the self-report stable, few researchers question their format--often blindly using some form of Labelled Categorical Scale (Likert-type). This study presents a brief review of the current literature examining the efficacy of…

Previous research shows that interviewers to some extent fail to expend the effort that is needed to collect high-quality survey data. We extend the idea of interviewer satisficing to a related task, in which the interviewers themselves answer survey questions. We hypothesize that interviewers who self-administer the questionnaire in a careless…

This study investigates potential bias that may arise when surveys include question items for which multiple units are elicited. Examples of such items include questions about experiences with multiple health centers, comparison of different products, or the solicitation of egocentric network data. The larger the number of items asked about each…

Mixed-mode surveys are known to be susceptible to mode-dependent selection and measurement effects, collectively referred to as mode effects. The use of different data collection modes within the same survey may reduce selectivity of the overall response but is characterized by measurement errors differing across modes. Inference in sample surveys…

Findings on the reliability and cost-effectiveness of the use of cellular phones vis-à-vis face-to-face interviews in investigating health behaviors and conditions are presented for a national epidemiological sample from Lebanon. Using self-reported responses on identical questions, percentage agreement, ? statistics, and McNemar's test were used…

As pressure builds to assess students, teachers, and schools, educational practitioners and policy makers are increasingly looking toward student perception surveys as a promising means to collect high-quality, useful data. For instance, the widely cited Measures of Effective Teaching study lists student perception surveys as one of the three key…

This discussion constructs a survey data quality strategy for institutional researchers in higher education in light of total survey error theory. It starts with describing the characteristics of institutional research and identifying the gaps in literature regarding survey data quality issues in institutional research and then introduces the…

Web-based surveys have become more prevalent in areas such as evaluation, research, and marketing research to name a few. The proliferation of these online surveys raises the question, how do response rates compare with traditional surveys and at what cost? This research explored response rates and costs for Web-based surveys, paper surveys, and…

This proposed research is part of an on-going line of research of developing questionnaire instruments for use at the elementary school level. Because field trials often use child self-report as outcome measures and sometimes determine implementation fidelity using such measures, evaluation of the validity of the use of such measures with…

This paper intends to construct a survey data quality strategy for institutional researchers in higher education in light of total survey error theory. It starts with describing the characteristics of institutional research and identifying the gaps in literature regarding survey data quality issues in institutional research. Then it is followed by…

Although the mail survey is an efficient method for collecting data, its major disadvantage of nonresponse bias is reflected in the number of studies conducted investigating the effects of incentives to increase response rates. Linsky (1975) reviewed studies investigating the use of incentives to increase mailed return rates and found…

Discusses how to define a welfare spell (period on welfare) and how well surveys measure welfare spells. A look at survey and administrative data from two studies shows that a substantial amount of administrative churning occurs in administrative data. A single definition of a welfare spell does not appear applicable to all respondents. (SLD)