Summary
Since the 1970s, telephone methods have been a ubiquitous way of collecting large-scale surveys. This has been especially true for studies with complex questionnaires, surveys requiring screening for special populations, and those requiring smaller area geographic estimates. With the changing environment for telephone surveys, an increasing number of surveys are transitioning from telephone to combinations of multiple modes for both recruitment and survey administration, where phone may be only one of a number of modes that are used, if at all. Survey organizations, such as the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), are conducting these transitions from telephone to mixed modes with only limited guidance from existing empirical literature and best practices. This report is written with the goal of helping the survey research field navigate these challenges by examining what surveys have done in this transition, what is known, and where open areas are for additional insights and research.
Authors evaluate issues related to sample design, household selection and/or screening for eligible respondents, and coverage of different frames and selection approaches; questionnaire design and language of administration; nonresponse and survey operations; survey estimation, including issues related to weighting and measurement error when combining data from multiple modes; and costs. To do so, authors conducted an extensive review of the literature, examining published articles, technical reports, conference presentations, and internal reports conducted by members of the Task Force or their organizations.
Second, authors reached out to the greater AAPOR community via AAPORNet and asked for any description, papers, or documentation about surveys that had transitioned from telephone to self-administered or mixed-mode approaches or were thinking about making this transition.
Finally, the authors conducted a convenience sample survey of the AAPOR Community to get more general insights into survey organizations, reasons behind making these transitions.
Publication Authors:
- Kristen Olson
- et al