The presence of an interviewer is hypothesised to motivate respondents to generate an accurate answer and reduce task difficulty, but also to reduce the privacy of the reporting situation.The prevalence of indicators of satisficing (e.g., non-differentiation, acquiescence, middle categories,...

Whether questions and answers are transmitted between interviewer and respondent by visual or aural communication can affect the responses given. We hypothesise that communication channel can affect either the respondent's understanding of the question or the tendency to satisfice. These effects...

This paper explores the use of cognitive interviewing as a pre-planned follow-up to a quantitative mixed modes experiment. It describes both the quantitative and cognitive interview phases and results. The goal for both was to explore measurement error differences between (computer-assisted...

We examine the effects on survey estimates of extended interviewer efforts to gain survey response, including refusal conversion attempts and attempts to make contact with hard-to-contact sample members. Specifically, we update and extend the research of Lynn & Clarke (2002). We estimate bias...

Using an experimental design, we compare two alternative approaches to dependent interviewing (proactive and reactive) with traditional independent interviewing on a module of questions about sources of income. We believe this to be the first large-scale quantitative comparison of proactive and...

This report derives from the project ?Improving survey measurement of income and employment (ISMIE)? which investigates measurement error in survey data on income and employment, using a UK sub-sample of the European Household Community Panel (ECHP). In this paper we describe the process of...

Linkages of household survey responses with administrative data may be based on unique individual identifiers or on survey respondent characteristics. The benefits gained from using unique identifiers need to be assessed in the light of potential problems such as non-response and measurement...

We analyse consent patterns and consent bias in the context of a large general household survey, the ?Improving survey measurement of income and employment? (ISMIE) survey, also addressing issues that arise when there are multiple consent questions. Using a multivariate probit regression model...

We review the methods typically used to assess the effects of mode on measurement and data comparability and then discuss some of the challenges, including 1) the need to avoid confounding effects, 2) the sensitivity of conclusions to methods of analysing experimental mode comparison data, 3)...