The Effects of Interactive Requests on the Quantity and Quality of Survey Responses : An International Methodological Experiment
(2025) In British Journal of Political Science 55.- Abstract
- A perennial issue of survey research is that some participants do not answer all questions. Interactive follow-up requests are a novel approach to this problem. However, research on their effectiveness is scarce. I present the most comprehensive study yet on the effects of interactive requests on item non-responses. Theoretically, I outline different pathways whereby follow-up requests may effectively increase response rates and improve data quality: reminding, motivating, instructing, monitoring, and sanctioning. To test my hypothesis that interactive requests increase item response rates, I conducted an online survey experiment in 2021 on diverse samples of around 3,100 respondents in ten countries worldwide. I find that follow-up... (More)
- A perennial issue of survey research is that some participants do not answer all questions. Interactive follow-up requests are a novel approach to this problem. However, research on their effectiveness is scarce. I present the most comprehensive study yet on the effects of interactive requests on item non-responses. Theoretically, I outline different pathways whereby follow-up requests may effectively increase response rates and improve data quality: reminding, motivating, instructing, monitoring, and sanctioning. To test my hypothesis that interactive requests increase item response rates, I conducted an online survey experiment in 2021 on diverse samples of around 3,100 respondents in ten countries worldwide. I find that follow-up requests generally increase response rates, although effects vary by country. Depending on the question and survey design, interactive requests reduce item non-responses by up to 47 per cent across countries, while not adversely affecting data quality. I thus recommend response requests to increase survey data efficiency. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/6834f694-495c-4dba-aad7-6ccb8ca47c21
- author
- Ghassim, Farsan LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-02-13
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- request, feedback, probing, non-response, survey design
- in
- British Journal of Political Science
- volume
- 55
- article number
- e18
- publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85219746564
- ISSN
- 0007-1234
- DOI
- 10.1017/S0007123424000747
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 6834f694-495c-4dba-aad7-6ccb8ca47c21
- date added to LUP
- 2025-02-17 10:16:35
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:21:57
@article{6834f694-495c-4dba-aad7-6ccb8ca47c21,
abstract = {{A perennial issue of survey research is that some participants do not answer all questions. Interactive follow-up requests are a novel approach to this problem. However, research on their effectiveness is scarce. I present the most comprehensive study yet on the effects of interactive requests on item non-responses. Theoretically, I outline different pathways whereby follow-up requests may effectively increase response rates and improve data quality: reminding, motivating, instructing, monitoring, and sanctioning. To test my hypothesis that interactive requests increase item response rates, I conducted an online survey experiment in 2021 on diverse samples of around 3,100 respondents in ten countries worldwide. I find that follow-up requests generally increase response rates, although effects vary by country. Depending on the question and survey design, interactive requests reduce item non-responses by up to 47 per cent across countries, while not adversely affecting data quality. I thus recommend response requests to increase survey data efficiency.}},
author = {{Ghassim, Farsan}},
issn = {{0007-1234}},
keywords = {{request; feedback; probing; non-response; survey design}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{02}},
publisher = {{Cambridge University Press}},
series = {{British Journal of Political Science}},
title = {{The Effects of Interactive Requests on the Quantity and Quality of Survey Responses : An International Methodological Experiment}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0007123424000747}},
doi = {{10.1017/S0007123424000747}},
volume = {{55}},
year = {{2025}},
}