Work

An Interactional Model of the Call for Survey Participation: Actions and Reactions in the Survey Recruitment Call

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: Previous research has proposed that the actions of sample members may provide encouraging, discouraging, or ambiguous interactional environments for interviewers soliciting participation in surveys. In our interactional model of the recruitment call that brings together the actions of interviewers and sample members, we examine features of actions that may contribute to an encouraging or discouraging environment in the opening moments of the call. Using audio recordings from the 2004 wave of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study and an innovative design that controls for sample members' estimated propensity to participate in the survey, we analyze an extensive set of interviewers' and sample members' actions, the characteristics of those actions, and their sequential location in the interaction. We also analyze whether a sample member's subsequent actions (e.g., a question about the length of the interview or a "wh-type" question) constitute an encouraging, discouraging, or ambiguous environment within which the interviewer must produce her next action. Our case-control design allows us to analyze the consequences of actions for the outcome of the call.

Source: Public Opinion Quarterly

DOI: 10.1093/poq/nft006

Authors: N. C. Schaeffer, D. Garbarski, J. Freese, D. W. Maynard

Institutions: Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Language: English

Topic: Survey Methodology and Nonresponse

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: National Science Foundation, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Award: Recruiting Respondents to the Survey Interview