Online Program

Nonresponse Bias Study for the Large Pelagics Telephone Survey (303442)

This study was conducted to examine the nonresponse bias of the Large Pelagic Survey (LPS) conducted by NOAA Fisheries Statistics Division. Unit nonresponse is defined as the failure to obtain survey measures on a sample unit. Survey researchers calculate and report their response rates as they are often used as an indicator of “risk” of nonresponse bias. Nonresponse bias occurs when the following two conditions are met: 1) a significant number of people in the survey sample do not respond to the questionnaire, and 2) demographics or fishing behaviors of non-respondents differ from respondents . The LPS is designed as a specialized survey that focuses specifically on estimating catch and effort for large pelagic species (e.g., tunas, billfishes, sharks, etc.). The LPS includes two independent, yet complementary surveys which provide the effort (Large Pelagic Telephone Survey) and mean catch-per-unit-effort (Large Pelagic Intercept Survey) estimates needed to estimate total catch by species. In this study, the analysis focused on measuring the impact of nonresponse bias on the Large Pelagic Telephone Survey.