Identifying Causal Mechanisms Underlying Nonignorable Unit Nonresponse Through Refusals to Surveys

该项目是一组随机实验，旨在系统地产生和消除调查估计中的单位无应答误差。具体地说，调查请求的三个属性(话题兴趣、调查赞助商和货币激励)将与目标人群的选择一致地进行实验操作。将使用包含具有已知特征的人(例如，职业群体、兴趣群体、特定产品或服务的消费者群体)的抽样框。这些小组中随机确定的小样本将被要求参加关于与框架相关的主题和与框架无关的主题的自我管理调查。考虑到这一因素，调查的赞助将在实验上有所不同，一个赞助商与框架相关，一个赞助商与框架无关。最后，货币激励的使用将与其他两个因素交叉，以衡量参与的外部利益的影响。关键假设是，当调查包含与框架相关的项目时，话题兴趣和赞助会产生不可忽视的无反应，而金钱激励通过将话题兴趣较低且对赞助者影响最小的样本纳入被调查者池中来减少无反应错误的幅度。这项工作对基于调查的统计学的实际意义是：a)帮助进行调查的机构预测不同的赞助者何时可能获得不同的结果；b)提供证据，说明访谈者强调调查的单一目的对无回答错误的潜在有害影响；c)提供关于金钱激励对无回答错误的改善效果的证据；d)测试概念结构，以帮助调查发起人预测无回答比率何时会影响错误以及何时不会影响错误。这项研究得到了方法学、测量和统计计划以及调查和统计方法学资助机会研究下的一个联邦统计机构联盟的支持。

This project is a set of randomized experiments aimed at systematically both producing and eliminating unit nonresponse error in survey estimates. Specifically, three attributes of the survey request (topic interest, survey sponsor, and monetary incentives) will be experimentally manipulated in concert with choice of target population. Sampling frames containing persons with known characteristics (e.g., occupational groups, interest groups, groups of consumers of specific products or services) will be used. Randomly identified subsamples of these groups will be asked to participate in self-administered surveys on topics of relevance to the frame and topics irrelevant to the frame. Crossed with this factor, the sponsorship of the survey will be experimentally varied, with one sponsor relevant to the frame and one irrelevant to the frame. Finally, the use of a monetary incentive will be crossed with both of the other factors to measure the effects of extrinsic benefits of participation. The key hypothesis is that topic interest and sponsorship act to produce nonignorable nonresponse when the surveys contain items relevant to the frame, and that monetary incentives act to reduce the magnitude of nonresponse error by bringing into the respondent pool sample persons with low topic interest and minimal affect toward the sponsor. The effects of sponsor affect and topic interest are expected to be additive; monetary incentives are expected to counteract the nonignorability influences of both factors.The practical importance of this work to statistics based on surveys is: a) to help agencies conducting surveys anticipate when different sponsors may obtain different results; b) to provide evidence about potentially harmful effects on nonresponse error of interviewers' emphasizing single purposes of a survey; c) to produce evidence regarding the ameliorating effects on nonresponse error of monetary incentives; and d) to test a conceptual structure that will help survey sponsors anticipate when nonresponse rates will affect error and when they will not. This research is supported by the Methodology, Measurement, and Statistics Program and a consortium of federal statistical agencies under the Research on Survey and Statistical Methodology Funding Opportunity.