Survey organisations often attempt to 'convert' sample members who refuse to take part in a survey. Persuasive techniques are used in an effort to get the refusers to change their mind and agree to an interview. This is done in order to improve response rate and, possibly, to reduce non-response...

Survey organizations often attempt to 'convert' sample members who refuse to take part in a survey. Persuasive techniques are used in an effort to change the refusers' minds and to agree to an interview. This is done to improve the response rate and, possibly, to reduce non-response bias....

This paper presents some preliminary findings from Wave 5 of the Innovation Panel (IP5) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major panel survey in the UK. In February 2012, the fifth wave of the Innovation Panel went into the field. IP5 used a...

To date, face-to-face interviewing has been the primary mode of data collection for Understanding Society. There may be advantages in instead collecting data online where possible. Primarily, this should bring a reduction in data collection costs. There are, however, concerns that response rates...

This paper presents some preliminary findings from the Wave 2 Innovation Panel (IP2) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major new panel survey for the UK. In April 2009, the second wave of the Innovation Panel was fielded. This paper...

This paper documents the introduction of dependent interviewing in wave 16 of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Dependent interviewing is a method of designing questions on longitudinal surveys where substantive information, available to the survey organisation prior to the interview,...

This paper presents some preliminary findings from the Wave 4 Innovation Panel (IP4) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major new panel survey for the UK. In March 2011, the fourth wave of the Innovation Panel was fielded. This paper...

This paper presents some preliminary findings from the Wave 3 Innovation Panel (IP3) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major new panel survey for the UK. In April 2010, the third wave of the Innovation Panel was fielded. This paper...

Incentives in the form of a gift or money are given to survey respondents in the hope that this will increase response rates and possibly also reduce non-response bias. They can also act as a means of thanking respondents for taking part and showing appreciation for the time the respondent has...