The Joint Effect of Topic Interest and Follow-Up Procedures on the Response in a Mail Questionnaire

Henk Roose, John Lievens and Hans Waege
Additional contact information
Henk Roose: Ghent University, Belgium
John Lievens: Ghent University, Belgium
Hans Waege: Ghent University, Belgium

Sociological Methods & Research, 2007, vol. 35, issue 3, 410-428

Abstract: Leverage-saliency theory provides a seminal basis for research on the differential effects of response-facilitating techniques in surveys. In this article, a quasi-experimental design is applied to analyze the effect of follow-up procedures, taking into account the sample persons’ interest in the survey topic. The authors use multilevel logistic regression to map response on a mail questionnaire in the second step of a two-step data collection procedure. It is found that—after controlling for the effects of sociodemographic and performance-related covariates—the effect of follow-up procedures is larger for those less interested in the survey topic. As such, these findings are an empirical confirmation of the leverage-saliency theory. Some implications for survey research are discussed.

Keywords: nonresponse; survey participation; leverage-saliency theory; Total Design Method; topic interest (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124106290447 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:somere:v:35:y:2007:i:3:p:410-428

DOI: 10.1177/0049124106290447

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Sociological Methods & Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().