Paradata in the European Social Survey: Studying Nonresponse and Adjusting for Bias

• Activity Number: 321
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Ineke Stoop*+ and Jaak Billiet and Achim Koch
• Companies: The Netherlands Institute for Social Research/SCP and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
• Keywords: nonresponse ; paradata ; nonresponse bias ; cross-national ; survey ; optimal comparability

Abstract

The ESS is a biennial face-to-face survey of attitudes, opinions and beliefs in around 30 European countries. The target response rate is 70%, but in practice response rates are often lower and vary across countries. This paper presents an overview of the paradata that are collected in the ESS and of the purposes for which they are used. It also describes the different auxiliary variables that have been used to assess and adjust for nonresponse bias: population statistics, interviewer observations, data from doorstep questionnaires and follow-up studies, and paradata derived from the 'contact forms'. It also devotes attention to the balance between high national quality and optimal comparability across countries.