Survey response rates: Trends and a validity assessment framework
Georgetown University · University of Southampton · +2 more institutions
Abstract
Survey methodology has been and continues to be a pervasively used data-collection method in social science research. To better understand the state of the science, we first analyze response-rate information reported in 1014 surveys described in 703 articles from 17 journals from 2010 to 2020. Results showed a steady increase in average response rate from 48% in 2005 to 53% in 2010 to 56% in 2015 and 68% in 2020; a marked increase in the number of surveys per published article from 1.27 in 2015 to 1.79 in 2020; and that variables that predict response-rate fluctuations over time are related to research design (e.g. data-collection medium), participant motivation (e.g. incentives), and researcher motivation…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 112.53
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 61
Authors
4Topics & keywords
- Representativeness heuristic
- Data collection
- Context (archaeology)
- Psychology
- Incentive
- Response bias
- Data quality
- External validity