Chapter 7

Social desirability bias

Bias in response caused by respondents' desire either conscious or unconscious, to gain prestige or appear in a different social role.

Interactive Survey approaches

Communication that allows spontaneous two-way interaction between the interviewer and the respondent.

Personal interview

Face-to-face communication in which an interviewer ask a respondent to answer questions

Item nonresponse

Failure of a respondent to provide an answer to a survey question

Cover letter

Letter that accompanies a questionnaire to induce the reader to complete and return the questionnaire.

Interviewer error

Mistakes made by interviewers failing to record survey responses correctly

Data processing error

A category of administrative error that occurs because of the incorrect data entry, incorrect computer programming, or other procedural errors during data analysis.

Extremity bias

A category of response bias that results because some individuals tend to use extremes when responding to questions

Administrative error

A error caused by improper administration or execution of the research task.

sample survey

A more formal term for a survey emphasizing that respondents' opinion presuming represent a sample of the larger target population's opinion.

sample bias

A persistent tendency for a result of a sample to deviate in one direction from the true value of a population parameter

Interviewer bias

A response bias that occurs because the presence of the interviewers influences respondents' answer.

Internet Survey

A self-administered survey administered using a web-based questionnaire

Drop-off method

A survey method that requires the interviewer to travel to the respondent's location to drop off questionnaires that will be picked up later

Acquiescence bias

A tendency for respondent to agree with the viewpoints expressed by a survey

Refusal

People who are unwilling to participate in a research project

No contact

Potential respondents in the sense that they are members of the sampling frames but who do not receive the request to participate in the research.

population parameter

Refers to some true value of a phenomena within a population

Nonrespondents

Sample members who are not contacted or who refuse to co-operate in the research

Pretesting

Screening procedure that involves a trial run with a group of respondents to identify problems in and correct a survey design

Self-administered questionnaires

Surveys in which the respondent takes the responsibility for reading and answering the questions without having them stated orally by an interviewer.

Response rate

The number of questionnaires returned or completed divided by the number of sample members provided a chance to participate in the survey.

respondents

The people who verbally answer or provide answers to written questions

Click rate

The portion of potential respondents exposed to a hyperlink to a survey who actually click through to view the questionnaire

Interviewer cheating

The practice of filling in fake answers or falsifying questionnaires while working as an interviewer

Nonresponse error

the statistical differences between a survey that includes only those who responded and a perfect survey that would also include those who failed to respond

Random digit dialing

use of telephone exchanges and random numbers to develop a sample of respondents in landline phone survey

Self-selection bias

A bias that occurs because people who feel strongly about a subject more likely to respond to survey questions than people who feel indifferent about it.

Response bias

A bias that occurs when respondents either consciously or unconsciously answer questions with a certain slant that misrepresent the truth.

Respondent Error

A category of a sample bias resulting from some respondent action such as lying or inaction such as not responding

CATI

Acronym for computer-assisted telephone interviews.

Sample selection error

An administrative error caused by improper sample design or sampling procedure execution

callbacks

Attempts to try and contact those sample members missed in the initial attempt

sampling error

error arising because of inadequacies of the actual respondents to represent the population of interest

systematic error

error resulting from some imperfect aspect of the research design that causes respondent error or from a mistake in the execution of the research