Ask: Research and Methods. Volume 18, Issue 1 (2009)
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Non-Response Bias in Cross-National Surveys: Designs for Detection and Adjustment in the ESS
Billiet, Jaak; Matsuo, Hideko; Beullens, Koen; Vehovar, Vasja pp. 3-43
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Item Non-response in the European Social Survey
Koch, Achim; Blohm, Michael pp. 45-65
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How Does Length of Fieldwork Period Influence Non-Response? Findings from ESS 2 in Poland
Sztabinski, Franciszek; Sztabinski, Pawel B.; Przybysz, Dariusz pp. 67-95
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Testing a Formal Theory of Images of Stratification: A Proposal for a Research Design
Karpinski, Zbigniew pp. 97-122
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Mapping Catholic Governance Practices in Poland after 1989
Smoczynski, Rafal pp. 123-139
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Item Mapping Catholic Governance Practices in Poland after 1989(IFiS Publishers, 2009) Smoczyński, RafałThis article lays out some of the major features of the proposed research on Catholic governance practices in a context of Polish post-communist social change. Firstly, it proposes to examine how market action in Poland was embedded in socio-normative structures influenced by Catholic social agency. In such a perspective, it is suggested that the attention should be paid to the role of Catholic cognitive structures in affecting social practices that aimed to solve the coordination problems, which were being experienced by market actors. Secondly, it is recognized that the proposed research should analyse the social control practices inspired by Catholic agency, particularly this project focuses on moral panic of the 1990s that was targeting new religious movements labeled as folk devils. The proposed research constitutes an attempt to demonstrate that moral panic may be seen as a struggle to impose a strict definition of the collective religious identity and its association with the national identity.Item Testing a Formal Theory of Images of Stratification: A Proposal for a Research Design(IFiS Publishers, 2009) Karpiński, ZbigniewThe objective of this paper is to propose a design for empirical tests of Fararo and Kosaka’s theory of images of stratification. The theory provides formal and axiomatic explanation of how popular perceptions of social structure emerge out of ordinary social interaction as its by-product, and the research design described in this paper makes use of the factorial survey technique, also called vignette analysis to test some consequences derived from that theory. Vignettes are descriptions of fictitious persons, but they can refer to other entities as well. A number of such vignettes are presented to respondents, whose task is to assess them in terms of a criterion indicated by a researcher.Item How Does Length of Fieldwork Period Influence Non-Response? Findings from ESS 2 in Poland(IFiS Publishers, 2009) Sztabiński, Franciszek; Sztabiński, Paweł B.; Przybysz, DariuszIn this paper we show how one method of increasing the response rate, i.e. an extension of the fieldwork period, influences the structure of non-response and the differences between respondents and non-respondents. We used data from the Pilot Study and the Main Study for the European Social Survey, Round 2, and from follow-up studies conducted after each of those. The fieldwork period of the Pilot Study was 11 days and the one of the Main Study was nearly 2.5 months. The follow-up study involved distributing a mail questionnaire to people who did not participate in the face-to-face survey (non-respondents). Extension of the fieldwork period brought a relatively modest increase in the response rate. However, a comparison of differences between the respondents and non-respondents for a short and a long fieldwork period demonstrated that those differences occurred in demographic variables and in opinion questions. We also compared the effect of the length of fieldwork period on differences between the respondents and two categories of non-respondents: refusers and inaccessibles for other reasons. We did not find any effect of the length of the fieldwork period on differences between respondents and inaccessibles for other reasons, neither in socio-demographics nor in opinion questions. However, the effect did occur when we compared respondents and refusers.Item Item Non-response in the European Social Survey(IFiS Publishers, 2009) Koch, Achim; Blohm, MichaelItem nonresponse is widely considered an important indicator of data quality. It decreases the available sample size for analyses and bears the risk of biased results if the missingness is not at random. The present study investigates item nonresponse rates in the first three rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS). The ESS is a biennial cross-national survey of attitudes and behaviours, first fielded in 2002. Our focus is on the average level of item nonresponse across 75 questions being part of the ‘core modul’ of the ESS questionnaire (cumulative item nonresponse). We describe the average amount of item nonresponse for all countries separately for the different types of item nonresponse: ‘don’t know’, ‘refusal’, and ‘no answer’. In addition we analyse the potential reasons for differences across countries in the main type of item nonresponse, i.e. ‘don’t know’ nonresponse. This is done by multi-level modelling; the three hierarchical levels of respondents, interviewers, and countries are distinguished.Item Non-Response Bias in Cross-National Surveys: Designs for Detection and Adjustment in the ESS(IFiS Publishers, 2009) Billiet, Jaak; Matsuo, Hideko; Beullens, Koen; Vehovar, VasjaThis paper is focused on process and output aspects of the obtained sample and deals with the measurement of non-response, and the study of non-response bias from a viewpoint of comparative research in which the concept of “equivalence” in measurement is central (Jowell et al., 2007). The paper starts with a theoretical reflection on several designs for the detection of non-response bias: comparing sample statistics with population statistics; using information from reluctant respondents based on converted refusals; asking a small set of crucial questions at occasion of first contact (and refusal) or in a period after the main survey, and collecting observed information of the house and neighbourhood of the sampling units. Each of these methods are used in the past three round of ESS, but only the first and second approaches are fully documented for Rounds 1 and 2 till now. Problems related to each of these methods are considered, and the application of each of the procedures is (empirically) evaluated using information of past ESS surveys as far as the data are available. Methods that can be used for data based adjustment of the sample measures are considered.