A Pilot Test of a Dual Frame Mail Survey of Recreational Marine Anglers

• Activity Number: 570
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 4, 2010 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Nancy Mathiowetz*+ and Rob Andrews and J. Michael Brick and Lynne Stokes
• Companies: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and NOAA and Westat and Southern Methodist University
• Keywords: Address-based Sampling ; Coverage ; Dual Frame Sampling ; Mail Survey

Abstract

The Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey is a program consisting of the Coastal Household Telephone Survey (CHTS) to assess annual saltwater fishing effort and an access-point intercept survey to assess catch per unit effort. The National Research Council critiqued the design of the CHTS, citing its high non-coverage rate (RDD landlines limited to costal communities)and inefficiency. To address these concerns, a pilot test of a dual frame, self-administered mail survey was fielded in 2009. The design minimizes non-coverage of anglers by sampling from an address-based frame while maximizing efficiency by sampling from a saltwater fishing license frame. The paper reports the results of the field test, including response rates for both screener and extended interviews, data quality, frame deduplication, and estimation issues related to the use of overlapping frames.