Improving Surveys with Paradata: Analytic Uses of Process Information

CHAPTER 8

USING PARADATA TO STUDY RESPONSE TO WITHIN-SURVEY REQUESTS

JOSEPH W. SAKSHAUG

Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg

8.1 INTRODUCTION

Surveys have evolved significantly from the days where the sole means of data collection consisted of asking respondents to complete a standard Q&A-type questionnaire administered under a single mode of data collection. Although the traditional questionnaire remains the primary instrument for data collection in survey research, it is being supplemented with requests to collect additional data from respondents using less traditional methods. Such requests may include asking respondents for permission to collect physical or biological measurements (collectively referred to as “biomeasures”), access and link administrative records (e.g., Social Security, Medicare claims) to respondents’ survey information, switch from one mode of data collection (e.g., face to face, computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI)) to another mode (e.g., interactive voice response, web), complete and mail back a leave-behind questionnaire in a face-to-face interview, among other requests. Such requests, which are usually made within the survey interview itself, have spawned new scientific opportunities that allow researchers to answer important substantive and methodological questions that would be more difficult to answer otherwise.

There is evidence that within-survey requests have been increasing. Figure 8.1 shows a steady rise in the annual ...