Reducing and measuring nonresponse bias in times of crisis: Challenges, opportunities, and new directions 1 |
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| Coordinator 1 | Mr Tom Krenzke (Westat) |
With response rates for sample surveys continuing to decline, much focus has been on reducing and measuring nonresponse bias. The COVID-19 pandemic, the geo-political conflicts and humanitarian crisis have made it difficult to change the state of response rates. Methods exist for reducing nonresponse bias during data collection and after. The approaches include offering incentives for respondents and interviewers, hiring tips, training, use of outreach materials, and nonresponse strategies such as reassigning cases, tracking progress, and communication. Methods also exist that help to measure nonresponse bias to gauge the quality of the collected data. These methods include comparing demographic distributions before and after nonresponse adjustments, comparing respondent distributions to frame distributions, computing correlations between weighting variables and outcome variables, and conducting a level of effort analysis. Presentations will provide emerging approaches to improve response rates, and to reduce and measure nonresponse bias. The session will include a variety of surveys (e.g., Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies), from different countries, and sectors (government, university).