An Analysis of Interviewer Travel and Field Outcomes in Two Field Surveys

Wagner James () and Olson Kristen ()
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Wagner James: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, 426 Thompson St. Room 4050, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA
Olson Kristen: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Department of Sociology, 703 Oldfather Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA

Journal of Official Statistics, 2018, vol. 34, issue 1, 211-237

Abstract: In this article, we investigate the relationship between interviewer travel behavior and field outcomes, such as contact rates, response rates, and contact attempts in two studies, the National Survey of Family Growth and the Health and Retirement Study. Using call record paradata that have been aggregated to interviewer-day levels, we examine two important cost drivers as measures of interviewer travel behavior: the distance that interviewers travel to segments and the number of segments visited on an interviewer-day. We explore several predictors of these measures of travel - the geographic size of the sampled areas, measures of urbanicity, and other sample and interviewer characteristics. We also explore the relationship between travel and field outcomes, such as the number of contact attempts made and response rates.We find that the number of segments that are visited on each interviewer-day has a strong association with field outcomes, but the number of miles travelled does not. These findings suggest that survey organizations should routinely monitor the number of segments that interviewers visit, and that more direct measurement of interviewer travel behavior is needed.

Keywords: Interviewer travel; survey costs; nonresponse; paradata (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:offsta:v:34:y:2018:i:1:p:211-237:n:10

DOI: 10.1515/jos-2018-0010

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