TITLE

THE RELUCTANT RESPONDENT

AUTHOR(S)

Robins, Lee N.

PUB. DATE

June 1963

SOURCE

Public Opinion Quarterly;Summer63, Vol. 27 Issue 2, p276

SOURCE TYPE

Academic Journal

DOC. TYPE

Article

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on reluctant respondents in survey researches. According to the author, surveys are often plagued by the problem of the respondent who refuse or repeatedly postpone the interview, break appointments or are unable to decide on the question of cooperation with the interviewer. Such respondents not only have a demoralizing effect on the interviewer, who often interprets the refusing or stalling behavior as his personal failure, but also threaten to bias the sample of subjects selected. However, the dangers of biasing the sample must be weighed by the investigator against the costs in time and personnel of efforts to reverse the decision of the refuser and to make many call-backs on the staller. Most of the studies, in this regard, have generally been limited to those variables that interviewer can evaluate during the refusal itself, like approximate age, sex, quality of housing and current marital status. In addition, some information about the personality traits of refusers has been available from panel studies in which information collected during the first phase has been used to describe those who refuse to cooperate during the second phase.

ACCESSION #

11977282

Tags: SURVEYS;  INTERVIEWS;  PERSONALITY;  COST;  HOUSING;  MARITAL status

 

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