Household Telephone Service and Usage Patterns in the United states in 2004: Implications for Telephone Samples

Changes in the U.S. telephone system, especially the rapid growthin the prevalence and use of cell phones, raise concerns aboutundercoverage error in random digit dial (RDD) telephone samples.A supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) was conductedin 2004 to examine telephone service and usage in U.S. households.This article explores the potential for biases in RDD surveysresulting from the increases in cell phones by presenting estimatesof the percentage of households with different types of telephoneservice, including the percentage of cell-only households, andgiving demographic profiles of households by type of telephoneservice. Logistic regression models examine variables that predictwhether households are without a telephone or only have cellphones. These predictors may be used for weighting adjustmentsto reduce undercoverage biases. We address some additional issues,including the wording of questions for measuring telephone service,that are relevant if telephone-sampling methods are revisedto include cell phones. The estimates from the CPS supplementare also used to help understand some of the new sampling andweighting problems associated with selecting samples from cellphone numbers.     

INTERVIEWING OLDER ADULTS: MODE COMPARISON USING DATA FROM A FACE-TO-FACE SURVEY AND A TELEPHONE RESURVEY

A face-to-face survey conducted in 1984 with a sample of 1491residents of the Detroit metropolitan area (including an oversampleof older adults) and a reinterview of a random subset of theserespondents by telephone were used to compare the two modesof data collection across two age levels. Except for a tendencytoward a disproportionately large number of DK answers and adisproportionately large amount of interviewer assistance onthe telephone, respondents 60 years of age and older did notexhibit larger mode differences than did respondents under 60.For both age groups, response distributions were rather similar,suggesting little effect of mode. Likewise, response style differedlittle by mode, while a higher proportion of missing data (i.e.,"I don't know" answers) was given on the telephone. The responserate for the telephone reinterview was 90%, somewhat lower forolder than younger persons. The findings support the feasibilityof using the telephone for reinterviewing older adults.     

The Influence of Advance Letters on Response in Telephone Surveys: A Meta-Analysis

Recently, the leading position of telephone surveys as the majormode of data collection has been challenged. Telephone surveyssuffer from a growing nonresponse, partly due to the generalnonresponse trend for all surveys and partly due to changesin society and technology influencing contactability and willingnessto answer. One way to counteract the increasing nonresponseis the use of an advance letter. In mail and face-to-face surveys,advance letters have been proven effective. Based on the proveneffectiveness in face-to-face and mail surveys, survey handbooksadvise the use of advance letters in telephone surveys. Thisstudy reviews the evidence for this advice and presents a quantitativesummary of empirical studies on the effectiveness of advanceletters in raising the response rate for telephone surveys.The major conclusion is that advance letters are also an effectivetool in telephone surveys, with an average increase in responserate (RR1) from 58 percent (no letter) to 66 percent (advanceletter), and an average increase in cooperation rate (COOP1)from 64 percent (no letter) to 75 percent (advance letter).     

Information and Communication Technologies for Direct Poverty Alleviation: Costs and Benefits

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are powerful tools for empowerment and income generation in developing countries. The cost‐effectiveness of different ICTs does vary between developed and less developed countries, however. This article reviews the potential efficacy of radio, telephony and the Internet as tools of direct poverty alleviation in the latter. While the requirements for their successful utilisation make radio and telephone far more suitable technologies for the poor, traditional ICTs can act as a sustainable intermediary for them to gain indirect access to the power of the Internet. Governments should concentrate on opening up private and community provision of broadcasting and widening access to telephone services, so that they can effectively play this intermediary role.     

Comparison of telephone RDD and online panel survey modes on CPGI scores and co-morbidities

The purpose of this study was to compare the influence of two survey modes – telephone random digit dialling (RDD) and stratified sampling of an online panel – on Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI) scores and co-morbidities. An identical gambling survey was administered to 4000 South Koreans selected via random dialling of cell phone numbers and to 4330 South Korean members of an online panel. The online panelists were found to have significantly higher levels of tobacco use, drug or alcohol problems and mental health problems, higher employment status and lower happiness levels. However, even when controlling for these variables, CPGI scores for the online panel were significantly higher than those for the telephone interview. This appears to be due to higher levels of pathology among online panelists combined with potentially more valid self-reports due to enhanced anonymity.     

Effects and Costs of Tracing Strategies on Nonresponse Bias in a Survey of Workers with Low-Back Injury

Declining rates of participation are an increasing challengefor studies that involve telephone surveys. This study examinedthe costs of a telephone survey methodology that used increasinglyintensive tracing methods to track a pool of claimants who hadsustained occupational back injuries. It also compared the respondentsample to people who refused the survey and/or were not locatedor contacted. 3,181 claimants were drawn from a database maintainedby the Missouri Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC)and 1,475 completed a telephone interview. The DWC databaseprovided data reflecting monetary and disability outcomes forall potential participants; telephone interviews provided additionalself-reported data. More intensive tracing strategies improvedthe representativeness of the sample, yielding more women andminority participants. Relative to less intensive techniques,advanced tracing efforts located people whose DWC records weremore similar to claimants not located. While the hands-on tracingefforts reduced the apparent bias of the respondent sample,costs increased as tracing strategies intensified – over$98,000 was spent to trace 1,027 claimants who were never locatedor contacted. The results suggest some guidelines that may facilitatedecision-making for researchers and funders who must balancethe trade-off between costs and nonresponse bias when planningsurveys.     

Telephone sampling bias in surveying disability

Results of the California Disability Survey indicate that telephone interviewing is well suited for undertaking disability studies that provide (1) estimates of subgroups of the disabled population, including those that are statistically rare: (2) information on current and anticipated areas of policy concern; and (3) information for geographic areas important in rehabilitation program planning. Although these objectives necessitated a large sample size and a complex instrument, the costs and timeliness of telephone interviewing enabled the survey objectives to be reached. This paper discusses the advantages of telephone interviewing, as well as biases inherent in its use. The magnitude of the bias from the omission of nontelephone households is assessed, and the results confirm that the omission of nontelephone households introduces only minor biases into estimates for the total working-age population. A method of weighting is developed and illustrated.     

Monitoring youth behavior in response to structural changes. Alternative approaches for measuring adolescent drinking

Random digit dial (RDD) telephone and self-administered school-based surveys of drinking and drinking and driving were compared for adolescents from two Northern California communities. The RDD and school-based surveys resulted in very different samples. The telephone sample contained a greater proportion of European Americans and a smaller proportion of Asian Americans and "other" ethnicities. Respondents to the telephone sample also tended to be older and of higher socioeconomic status (SES). The telephone survey captured very few school dropouts. Moreover, it resulted in lower self-reports of drinking and drinking and driving. Survey mode appeared to influence respondents equally, regardless of their gender, age, ethnicity, or SES.     

Interviewing Older Adults: A Comparison of Telephone and Face-to-Face Modalities

This article examines telephone interviewing of older adultsand compares it with face-to-face interviews. Specifically,the following issues are examined in several national surveys:(1) differences in age distributions between the samples ofadults reached in both modes; (2) explanations for potentialdifferences in age distributions; (3) differences between thetwo modes in demographic characteristics in the adults reached,in interview process and in response quality, and how thesemode differences vary by age of the respondents. Telephone surveystend to underrepresent older persons, and older persons whodo participate in a telephone survey are disproportion atelywell educated. Implications of the lower response rate amongolder persons are softened by the fact that reponse distributionsacross a range of questions show little difference by interviewmode between older persons and persons of other age groups.     

Electronic Technology for Social Work Education and Practice: The Application of Telephone Technology to Counseling

SUMMARY

The author in this article argues for the legitimization of the telephone in one-on-one and group professional practice in social work. She contrasts telephone hotline work and face-to-face counseling with her view of telephone counseling.     

The relative costs and benefits of telephone interviews versus self-administered diaries for daily data collection

This article compares two methods of collecting daily data: self-administered diaries and telephone interviews. Study participants included 44 men and 56 women between the ages of 16 and 35 who participated in a larger study of drinking, drug use, and sexual activity. Participants were randomly assigned to either the written diary or the telephone interview conditions; question wording and format were identical in both conditions. Daily data were collected for a period of 8 weeks. Results indicate that although telephone interviews resulted in slightly more missed days of data collection, they generally yielded less item-level missing data, produced cleaner data and therefore were less costly to process, and were as palatable to participants as self-administered diaries. Except for reports of drinking and vegetable consumption, telephone and diary conditions did not differ in the amount of behavior reported; more drinking and vegetable consumption were reported with telephone interviews, however. Telephone interviews also imposed considerably higher overall personnel costs.     

Assessment of Cigarette Smoking and Smoking Susceptibility among Youth: Telephone Computer-Assisted Self-Interviews versus Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews

This experimental study assesses the effect of two survey methods,telephone audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (T-ACASI)and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), on self-reportsof smoking behavior and smoking susceptibility among adolescents12–17 years of age in California. In T-ACASI, participantslisten to prerecorded, computer-controlled questions and respondby pressing the keypad on a touch-tone telephone. In CATI, interviewersadminister the questions and enter responses into a computer.Prior research suggests that youth may be more likely to reportsensitive behaviors in a self-administered survey like T-ACASIcompared to an interviewer-administered survey like CATI, dueto greater perceived confidentiality. Logistic regression analyseswere conducted on unweighted data, controlling for demographicdifferences. Adjusted estimates of current smoking (past 30days) were significantly greater in T-ACASI (8.3 percent) thanCATI (4.5 percent). Smoking susceptibility (i.e., lack of afirm commitment not to smoke among those who have never smoked)was also greater in T-ACASI (45.0 percent) than CATI (34.9 percent).In both surveys, social desirability response bias was negativelyassociated with smoking, which suggests that response bias wasproblematic for both modes. Many respondents reported that aparent was present during the interview (59.4 percent in CATI;42.0 percent in T-ACASI). In both surveys, parental presencewas negatively associated with smoking, which suggests thatthis factor could also contribute to underreporting. Applicationof sample weights to the data eliminated the survey mode effects;however, the CATI current smoking estimate (9.3 percent) fromthis study was significantly less than an estimate (14.2 percent)obtained from a self-administered, school-based survey conductedthe same year on California adolescents.     

Telephone therapy: An alternative to isolation

While a fair amount has been written on the use of the telephone for crisis intervention and management of medical and psychosocial problems, little has been written about the telephone as the primary modality for ongoing therapy. This paper presents the author's experience in providing weekly telephone therapy for two women for over one and one half years. Questions related to the meaning of the telephone therapy for each of the clients and the social worker are discussed. It is concluded that the creative use of the telephone may make supportive therapy possible for some clients who would not otherwise pursue therapy.     

The changing experience of researching family and intimate relationships

A small-scale study to explore the possibility of obtaining information about small companies' charitable giving through telephone interviews provided challenges on three research design issues: selecting a target sample, telephone interviewing, and sensitive research topics. This article explores the general lessons derived from the study. First, it considers suitable sampling frames for identifying and contacing small companies. Second, it discusses the consequences for response rates of the telephone warfare between telemarketers and small companies. Third, it reviews what contributes to the sensitivity of research topics and ways of overcoming this.     

Impact of T-ACASI on Survey Measurements of Subjective Phenomena

Numerous studies have shown that audio-computer-assisted self-interviewing (audio-CASI) and telephone audio-CASI (T-ACASI) technologies yield increased reporting of sensitive and stigmatized objective phenomena such as sexual and drug use behaviors. Little attention has been given, however, to the impact of these technologies on the measurement of subjective phenomena (attitudes, opinions, feelings, etc.). This article reports results for the seven subjective measurements included in the National STD and Behavior Measurement Experiment (NSBME). NSBME drew probability samples of USA and Baltimore adults (Ns = 1,543 and 744, respectively) and randomized these respondents to be interviewed by T-ACASI or telephone interviewer-administered questioning (T-IAQ). Response distributions for all subjective measurements obtained by T-ACASI diverge from those obtained by human telephone interviewers. For six of our seven ordinal-scaled measurements, this divergence involved shifting responses directionally along the ordinal scale, as opposed to a nondirectional redistribution among response categories. When interviewed by T-ACASI, respondents were more supportive of traditional gender roles and corporal punishment, less supportive of integrated neighborhoods and same-gender sex, and more likely to agree that occasional marijuana use is harmless and to describe themselves as attractive. The majority of these results suggest that telephone survey respondents may provide more "tolerant" and "socially liberal" responses to human interviewers than to a T-ACASI computer. Similarly, although the evidence is not entirely consistent, the impact of T-ACASI appears to increase with the social vulnerability of the population surveyed.     

Reaching the U.S. Cell Phone Generation: Comparison of Cell Phone Survey Results with an Ongoing Landline Telephone Survey

Noncoverage rates in U.S. landline-based telephone samples dueto cell phone only households (i.e., households with no landlinebut accessible by cell phone) and the corresponding potentialfor bias in estimates from surveys that sample only from landlineframes are growing issues. Building on some of the few publishedstudies that focus on this problem, a study was conducted inthree states (Georgia, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania) as partof the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), theworld's largest ongoing public health telephone survey, to evaluatethe effectiveness of conducting the BRFSS interview with a sampledrawn from dedicated cell phone telephone exchanges and mixed-use(landline and cell phone) exchanges. Approximately 600 interviewswere conducted in each of two groups: cell phone only adults(n = 572) and adults with both a landline and a cell phone (n= 592). Making comparisons with data from the ongoing, landline-basedBRFSS survey, we report on response rates, demographic characteristicsof respondents, key survey estimates of health conditions andrisk behaviors, and survey costs. The methods used in this studyhave wide application for other U.S. telephone surveys.     

A Preliminary Investigation of a Telephone Administration of the Quality of Marriage Index

Follow‐up data collection presents many challenges for longitudinal research. Validating paper‐and‐pencil assessments for use via telephone may alleviate these issues. This study evaluates psychometric properties of the Quality of Marriage Index (QMI; Norton, 1983, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 45, 141) when administered by telephone and compares scores with the paper‐and‐pencil version. Participants included women with major depressive disorder and dyadic discord and their male spouses (n = 24 couples). Results suggest excellent scale reliability for the verbal QMI. However, a significant mean difference was found: participants scored on average 3 points higher on the telephone‐administered QMI than on the written QMI. Recommendations for future research and clinical implications are discussed.     

Then press enter: digital payment technology and the history of telephone interface

The internet and other digital networks in the U.S. (and beyond) remain essentially an upgrade of the national telephone network built by AT&T over the first half of the twentieth century, and digital payment remains tethered to telephony at the level of infrastructure. Telephone history also continues to inform digital payment at the level of interface. Debit card readers feature a keypad nearly identical to those introduced (also by AT&T) to the dialling public a half-century ago on touch-tone telephones. In this essay I highlight the development of the touch-tone keypad as a transformative payment technology. There have been three great leaps forward in the history of telephone interface: the dial, the keypad and the touch screen. Each corresponds to a period of technological transformation in the telephone industry and society more broadly: the rotary dial and automation, touch-tone keypads and digitization, and touch screens and computerization. The successful careers of the dial and the keypad, especially when read in tandem, suggest that touch screens will alter the everyday economics of retail payment even more radically than its predecessors. I also describe a broader trajectory of digital naturalization, whereby telephone numbers have proliferated into a personal identification number, passwords and a plethora of personalized information. Payments increasingly circulate today as subsets of personal information within the vast sea of big data. Payment apps are demonstrating a capacity to reorganize retail transactions on a scale as vast as any technology since the cash register. The history of retail payment finds the point of sale heading from the till into shoppers’ pockets. As a result, consumers are increasingly shouldering the costs of purchasing, maintaining, upgrading and securing the technology used for everyday transactions.     

Telephone Troubles: Interactional Breakdown and its Management by Stutterers and Their Listeners*

While both face-to-face and telephone interaction involve problems of management for stutterers and their listeners, the absence of visual cues in telephone talk poses special problems which can lead to interactional breakdown. These problems are accentuated by factors such as an individual's pattern of stuttering and adaptations to stuttering, the awareness context in which interaction takes place, and the nature of the relationship between the speakers. The author's sociological perspective goes beyond the clinical perspective of speech pathology in helping to understand the interactional and identity troubles of stutterers. His analysis also shows how both stutterers' breaches of conversational norms and the practices used to remedy these breaches illuminate taken-for-granted expectations in telephone interaction.     

Improving Gambling Survey Research Using Dual-Frame Sampling of Landline and Mobile Phone Numbers

Gambling prevalence studies are typically conducted within a single (landline) telephone sampling frame. This practice continues, despite emerging evidence that significant differences exist between landline and mobile (cell) phone only households. This study utilised a dual-frame (landline and mobile) telephone sampling methodology to cast light on the extent of differences across groups of respondents in respect to demographic, health, and gambling characteristics. A total of 2,014 participants from across Australian states and territories ranging in age from 18 to 96 years participated. Interviews were conducted using computer assisted telephone interviewing technology where 1,012 respondents from the landline sampling frame and 1,002 from the mobile phone sampling frame completed a questionnaire about gambling and other health behaviours. Responses across the landline sampling frame, the mobile phone sampling frame, and the subset of the mobile phone sampling frame that possessed a mobile phone only (MPO) were contrasted. The findings revealed that although respondents in the landline sample (62.7 %) did not significantly differ from respondents in the mobile phone sample (59.2 %) in gambling participation in the previous 12 months, they were significantly more likely to have gambled in the previous 12 months than the MPO sample (56.4 %). There were no significant differences in internet gambling participation over the previous 12 months in the landline sample (4.7 %), mobile phone sample (4.7 %) and the MPO sample (5.0 %). However, endorsement of lifetime problem gambling on the NODS-CLiP was significantly higher within the mobile sample (10.7 %) and the MPO sample (14.8 %) than the landline sample (6.6 %). Our research supports previous findings that reliance on a traditional landline telephone sampling approach effectively excludes distinct subgroups of the population from being represented in research findings. Consequently, we suggest that research best practice necessitates the use of a dual-frame sampling methodology. Despite inherent logistical and cost issues, this approach needs to become the norm in gambling survey research.