Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of the evaluation by respondents’ of their last survey interview on their attitudes towards surveys in general and whether these attitudes have an effect on their cooperation in future surveys. Data from a locally defined random probability sample is used to answer these questions. Firstly, subjects are found to differentiate between three dimensions when evaluating their survey experience. These dimensions are the burden respondents experienced during their last survey interview, how they judged its ‘entertainment value’ and how irritated they felt themselves to be by confusing questions. According to our second finding, only the burden experienced affects how subjects evaluate surveys in general. This association is found to be substantially stronger when the evaluation of the burden experienced in past interviews is cognitively more accessible as measured by the time needed to generate these judgments. This accessibility is found to be affected by the mode of administration of subjects last survey interview. According to our third result, respondents’ with a critical attitude towards surveys in general are more likely in the complete interview to answer ‘don’t know’, to refuse to answer questions and to be judged by the interviewer to be in general less willing to answer questions. However, the predictive power of attitudes towards surveys for respondents’ cooperation depends on the cognitive accessibility of these evaluations: fast attitude judgments are the better predictor for the subjects’ willingness to answer questions. The cognitive accessibility of attitudes towards surveys is found to increase with the number of subjects’ survey interviews in the past. In summary, the burden experienced by respondents in past survey interviews impairs their evaluation of surveys in general and thereby increases the prevalence of non-response in following surveys. In this way, survey researchers themselves partly determine the conditions for their future work.