Does respondent motivation affect item-nonresponse for split-ballot designed survey data? Comparative evidence from the European Social Survey

Melike Saraç ()
Additional contact information
Melike Saraç: Hacettepe University

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2024, vol. 58, issue 4, No 32, 3809 pages

Abstract: Abstract Survey quality would be enhanced if respondents willingly and accurately provided their responses. This seems feasible in ideal interview settings where respondents fully understand questions and provide truthful responses. Therefore, survey outcomes may be impacted by respondents’ feelings during the interview. The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is any relationship between respondent motivation, as operationalized by willingness and ability, and the item-nonresponse level for split-ballot designed questions. The 9th round of the European Social Survey (ESS9), a cross-national survey conducted across Europe, is the source of the data. This study assesses item-nonresponse using “don’t know” and “no answer” response choices for a set of questions designed with the split-ballot technique, which has not been dealt with much. In addition to the percentage distribution of item-nonresponse levels, the correlation analysis is used to understand the relationship between respondent motivation and item-nonresponse descriptively. Multivariable analyses use multiple linear regression modeling to explore the impact of respondent motivation on item-nonresponse, controlling for respondent and interviewer characteristics. Furthermore, bivariate relationships between outcome variable and covariates in the models were assessed using design-adjusted Wald-F tests. The findings pointed out that respondent motivation and item-nonresponse have a significant, negative, and moderate association. According to the complex sample design adjusted estimates of the statistical models, it may be able to reduce item-nonresponse with the increased motivation of respondents. This study offers several recommendations for questionnaire design, interviewing techniques, and interviewer evaluations for each respondent at the end.

Keywords: Respondent motivation; Item-nonresponse; Data collection; Split-ballot designed survey data; European Social Survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-023-01828-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:qualqt:v:58:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s11135-023-01828-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11135-023-01828-z

Access Statistics for this article

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology is currently edited by Vittorio Capecchi

More articles in Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().