Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Survey researchers have consistently found that interviewers make a small but systematic contribution to variability in response times. However, we know little about what the characteristics of interviewers are that lead to this effect. In this study, we address this gap in understanding by linking item-level response times from wave 3 of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS) to data from an independently conducted survey of interviewers. The linked data file contains over three million records and has a complex, hierarchical structure with response latencies nested within respondents and questions, which are themselves nested within interviewers and areas. We propose the use of a cross-classified mixed-effects location scale model to allow for the decomposition of the joint effects on response times of interviewers, areas, questions, and respondents. We evaluate how interviewer demographic characteristics, personality, and attitudes to surveys and to interviewing affect the length of response latencies and present a new method for producing interviewer-specific intra-class correlations of response times. Hence, the study makes both methodological and substantive contributions to the investigation of response times.

Abstract
As citizens around the world become ever more reluctant to respond to survey interview requests, incentives are playing an increasingly important role in maintaining response rates. In face-to-face surveys, interviewers are the key conduit of information about the existence and level of any incentive offered and, therefore, potentially moderate the effectiveness with which an incentive translates nonproductive addresses into interviews. Yet, while the existing literature on the effects of incentives on response rates is substantial, little is currently known about the role of interviewers in determining whether or not incentives are effective. In this article, we apply multilevel models to three different face-to-face interview surveys from the United Kingdom, which vary in their sample designs and incentive levels, to assess whether some interviewers are more successful than others in using incentives to leverage cooperation. Additionally, we link the response outcome data to measures of interviewer characteristics to investigate whether interviewer variability on this dimension is systematically related to level of experience and demographic characteristics. Our results show significant and substantial variability between interviewers in the effectiveness of monetary incentives on the probability of cooperation across all three surveys. However, none of the interviewer characteristics considered are significantly associated with more or less successful interviewers.

The question of whether and how ethnic diversity affects the social cohesion of communities has become an increasingly prominent and contested topic of academic and political debate. In this paper we focus on a single city: London. As possibly the most ethnically diverse conurbation on the planet, London serves as a particularly suitable test-bed for theories about the effects of ethnic heterogeneity on prosocial attitudes. We find neighbourhood ethnic diversity in London to be positively related to the perceived social cohesion of neighbourhood residents, once the level of economic deprivation is accounted for. Ethnic segregation within neighbourhoods, on the other hand, is associated with lower levels of perceived social cohesion. Both effects are strongly moderated by the age of individual residents: diversity has a positive effect on social cohesion for young people but this effect dissipates in older age groups; the reverse pattern is found for ethnic segregation.

We use a multi-level modelling approach to estimate the effect of ethnic diversity on measures of generalized and strategic trust using data from a new survey in Britain with a sample size approaching 25,000 individuals. In addition to the ethnic diversity of neighbourhoods, we incorporate a range of indicators of the socio-economic characteristics of individuals and the areas in which they live. Our results show no effect of ethnic diversity on generalized trust. There is a statistically significant association between diversity and a measure of strategic trust, but in substantive terms, the effect is trivial and dwarfed by the effects of economic deprivation and the social connectedness of individuals. Adapted from the source document.

We use a multi-level modelling approach to estimate the effect of ethnic diversity on measures of generalized and strategic trust using data from a new survey in Britain with a sample size approaching 25,000 individuals. In addition to the ethnic diversity of neighbourhoods, we incorporate a range of indicators of the socio-economic characteristics of individuals and the areas in which they live. Our results show no effect of ethnic diversity on generalized trust. There is a statistically significant association between diversity and a measure of strategic trust, but in substantive terms, the effect is trivial and dwarfed by the effects of economic deprivation and the social connectedness of individuals.

AbstractThis article presents analyses of individual investment in social capital using both the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the UK Time Use Survey (2000) (UKTUS). We suggest a general theoretical framework that could possibly explain individual investment in various forms of social networking. Measures of social capital are then constructed in an attempt to capture the extent of individual investment in bonding, bridging, and linking networks. These measures, together with other socioeconomic indicators, are used as explanatory factors in wage equations, estimated using ordered probit, OLS, and instrumental variable approaches. We are unable to identify any consistent returns from investment in bonding and bridging networks. In contrast, the evidence suggests that any returns to investment in the development of linking social capital simply derive from the positive signals that group membership may transmit to potential employers. Our results underline the contrast between studies that consider social capital as an attribute of communities, as opposed to individuals, in that we find a negative return to social activity at the level of the individual.

The correlation between knowledge and attitudes has been the source of controversy in research on the public understanding of science (PUS). Although many studies, both quantitative and qualitative, have examined this issue, the results are at best diverse and at worst contradictory. In this paper, we review the evidence on the relationship between public attitudes and public knowledge about science across 40 countries using a meta-analytic approach. We fit multilevel models to data from 193 nationally representative surveys on PUS carried out since 1989. We find a small positive correlation between general attitudes towards science and general knowledge of scientific facts, after controlling for a range of possible confounding variables. This general relationship varies little across cultures but more substantially between different domains of science and technology. Our results suggest that PUS research needs to focus on understanding the mechanisms that underlie the clear association that exists between knowledge and attitudes about science.

This state-of-the-art volume provides insight into the recent developments in survey research. It covers topics like: survey modes and response effects, bio indicators and paradata, interviewer and survey error, mixed-mode panels, sensitive questions, conducting web surveys and access panels, coping with non-response, and handling missing data. The authors are leading scientists in the field, and discuss the latest methods and challenges with respect to these topics. Each of the book's eight parts starts with a brief chapter that provides an historical context along with an overview of today's most critical survey methods. Chapters in the sections focus on research applications in practice and discuss results from field studies. As such, the book will help researchers design surveys according to today's best practices. The book's website www.survey-methodology.de provides additional information, statistical analyses, tables and figures. An indispensable reference for practicing researchers and methodologists or any professional who uses surveys in their work, this book also serves as a supplement for graduate or upper level-undergraduate courses on survey methods taught in psychology, sociology, education, economics, and business. Although the book focuses on European findings, all of the research is discussed with reference to the entire survey-methodology area, including the US. As such, the insights in this book will apply to surveys conducted around the world.

Die Verfasser fragen danach, in welchem Umfang Antwortverweigerungen bei großangelegten Haushaltsbefragungen reduziert werden können. Die Grundlage bieten Tonbandaufnahmen von über 300 Gesprächen an der Wohnungstür, die von zwei Meinungsforschungsinstituten zur Verfügung gestellt wurden. Diese Gespräche wurden nach dem Ausmaß der Ablehnung klassifiziert, das die Befragten an den Tag legten, sowie nach den damit zusammenhängenden Möglichkeiten des Interviewers, seine Interaktionskompetenz und Überzeugungskraft auszuspielen. Wo es sowohl Ablehnung seitens des zu Befragenden als auch Spielraum für den Interviewer gab, wurden die von den Interviewern angewandten Taktiken verglichen, wobei zwischen erfolgreichen (Kooperation) und nicht erfolgreichen (Antwortverweigerung) Gesprächen differenziert wurde. Die Verfasser diskutieren unterschiedliche Interaktionstypen und erörtern die Möglichkeit einer Reduzierung der Verweigerungsquote, wenn Interviewer in der Anwendung bestimmter Taktiken für Gespräche an der Wohnungstür geschult werden. (ICEÜbers)

A propensity to believe that fellow citizens will not act against our interests in social and economic transactions has been identified as key to the effective functioning of democratic polities. Yet the causes of this type of 'generalized' or 'social' trust are far from clear. To date, researchers within the social and political sciences have focused almost exclusively on social-developmental and political/institutional features of individuals and societies as the primary causal influences. In this paper we investigate the intriguing possibility that social trust might have a genetic, as well as an environmental basis. We use data collected from samples of monozygotic and dizygotic twins to estimate the additive genetic, shared environmental, and non-shared environmental components of trust. Our results show that the majority of the variance in a multi-item trust scale is accounted for by an additive genetic factor. On the other hand, the environmental influences experienced in common by sibling pairs have no discernable effect; the only environmental influences appear to be those that are unique to the individual. Our findings problematise the widely held view that the development of social trust occurs through a process of familial socialization at an early stage of the life course. Adapted from the source document.