Altering the Hold Period for Refusal Conversion Cases in an RDD Survey

• Activity Number: 41
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 8, 2004 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Sherman Edwards*+ and Dave Martin and Charles DiSogra and David Grant
• Companies: Westat and Westat and University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Los Angeles
• Keywords: RDD survey ; call scheduling

Abstract

At the 2003 AAPOR conference, Edwards et al. explored the scheduling of calls for refusal conversion in an RDD survey by comparing the day of week and time of day when the refusal occurred and when the first callback after refusal was made. A collateral finding in that research was that the refusal conversion rate increased steadily as the hold period increased up to about three weeks after the initial refusal. However, the length of the hold period was not varied experimentally, so the results may have been due to some factor related to the scheduling operation. The 2003 California Health Interview Survey introduced an experiment to assess the effects of different hold periods. Initial refusals designated for conversion were randomly assigned to hold periods of one, two, or three weeks. To date, more than 30,000 screener refusals have been recontacted, and more than one third have resulted in completed screeners. The analysis will compare the conversion rates, as well as the response rates for the extended interview for those completing the screener, across the three hold-period groups. It will also compare the characteristics.