An elusive concept: the changing definition of illegal immigrant in the practice of immigration control in the United Kingdom

This paper examines changing concepts of immigration practice in the UK. Immigration control at the port of entry has extended to internal control within the UK. The burden of proof of legality of status is increasingly on the immigrant, against a background of administrative rather than criminal justice. The changing and broadening definition of illegal immigration in the UK is part of a set of policies, which are governmental responses to what is conceived of as public opinion. THE GUARDIAN suggested that the Home Office has tightened up its application of the rules as the price to the Tory Right for their silence over further changes to the immigration law, thus demonstrating the political aspects of the concept of illegality. The Home Office replied that the UK was now one of the most densely populated countries in Europe and that, in terms of services, the country simply could not support all those who would like to come there. Nor can more than a certain number of newcomers be absorbed by any host community without the risk of friction. However, the host community is now multi-ethnic, and there is a black vote. The growth of administrative justice against which there is little effective appeal, the retrospective application of the 1971 Immigration Act, the ever-widening definition of the concept of illegality along with the fact that there is no time limit under the 1971 Act for one of the most common offenses, that of over-staying, have given rise to an increasing number of campaigns in support of individuals or families. These campaigns against the deportation of "illegal" immigrants may be an indication of a change in public opinion.     

Bargaining With Time: An Interview With Helen Pavlin

Helen Pavlin is an accredited mental health social worker and family therapist and accredited family dispute resolution practitioner in private practice in Darwin. She has been involved in social work and family therapy since the early 1970s in Australia and internationally. In 1996 she received the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Medal from the Australian Association of Social Workers. She is one of the assessors and associate editors for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. In 2007 Helen received the Journal Award for her outstanding contribution to the family therapy field in Australia. She is an accomplished writer and a member of the Australian Society of Authors. Her poems and book reviews have been published frequently in ANZJFT.     

Risk of Disclosure, Perceptions of Risk, and Concerns about Privacy and Confidentiality as Factors in Survey Participation

This article reports on a web-based vignette experiment investigating how likely subjects would be to participate in surveys varying in topic sensitivity and risk of disclosure. A total of 3,672 participants each responded to a series of eight vignettes, along with a variety of background questions, concerns about confidentiality, trust in various institutions, and the like.Vignettes were randomly assigned to respondents, such that each respondent was exposed to four levels of disclosure risk for each level of topic sensitivity (high versus low). Half the sample was assigned to receive a confidentiality statement for all eight vignettes, while the other half received no mention of confidentiality in the vignettes. The order of presentation of vignettes was randomized for each respondent.Respondents were also asked for their subjective perceptions of risk, harm, and social as well as personal benefits for one of the eight vignettes. Adding these questions permits us to examine how objective risk information presented by the researcher relates to the subjective perception of risk by the participant, and to assess the importance of both for their willingness to participate in the surveys described.Under conditions resembling those of real surveys, objective risk information does not affect willingness to participate. On the other hand, topic sensitivity does have such effects, as do general attitudes toward privacy and survey organizations as well as subjective perceptions of risk, harm, and benefits. We discuss the limitations and implications of these findings.     

Eye-Tracking Data: New Insights on Response Order Effects and Other Cognitive Shortcuts in Survey Responding

Survey researchers since Cannell have worried that respondents may take various shortcuts to reduce the effort needed to complete a survey. The evidence for such shortcuts is often indirect. For instance, preferences for earlier versus later response options have been interpreted as evidence that respondents do not read beyond the first few options. This is really only a hypothesis, however, that is not supported by direct evidence regarding the allocation of respondent attention. In the current study, we used a new method to more directly observe what respondents do and do not look at by recording their eye movements while they answered questions in a Web survey. The eye-tracking data indicate that respondents do in fact spend more time looking at the first few options in a list of response options than those at the end of the list; this helps explain their tendency to select the options presented first regardless of their content. In addition, the eye-tracking data reveal that respondents are reluctant to invest effort in reading definitions of survey concepts that are only a mouse click away or paying attention to initially hidden response options. It is clear from the eye-tracking data that some respondents are more prone to these and other cognitive shortcuts than others, providing relatively direct evidence for what had been suspected based on more conventional measures.     

Web survey design and administration.

Many claims are being made about the advantages of conducting surveys on the Web. However, there has been little research on the effects of format or design on the levels of unit and item response or on data quality. In a study conducted at the University of Michigan, a number of experiments were added to a survey of the student population to assess the impact of design features on resulting data quality. A sample of 1,602 students was sent an e-mail invitation to participate in a Web survey on attitudes toward affirmative action. Three experiments on design approaches were added to the survey application. One experiment varied whether respondents were reminded of their progress through the instrument. In a second experiment, one version presented several related items on one screen, while the other version presented one question per screen. In a third experiment, for one series of questions a random half of the sample clicked radio buttons to indicate their answers, while the other half entered a numeric response in a box. This article discusses the overall implementation and outcome of the survey, and it describes the results of the imbedded design experiments.     

Testing different rank order question layouts for PC and smartphone respondents

We studied the impact of different layouts for rank order questions on respondent effort, data quality, and substantive results among PC and smartphone respondents, in an experiment in an opt-in online panel in Spain, using an order-by-click design. We experimentally varied the device, the number of columns, and, for smartphone respondents, the position of the ‘next’ button in questions on trust in institutions.

We found some evidence of lower data quality for smartphone users but no evidence that presenting ranking items in one column performs differently than two columns. We also find little evidence that these effects differ by the number of response options presented or the number to be ranked. The placement of the ‘next’ button had little effect on performance on ranking items. Overall, our findings suggest that the format and layout of order-by-click questions has little effect on data quality, regardless of device used.     

Keeping Track of Panel Members: An Experimental Test of a Between-Wave Contact Strategy

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a nationally representative longitudinal survey of approximately 9,000 families and their descendants that has been ongoing since 1968. Since 1969, families have been sent a mailing asking them to update or verify their contact information to keep track of their whereabouts between waves. Having updated contact information prior to data collection is associated with fewer call attempts and refusal conversion efforts, less tracking, and lower attrition. Given these apparent advantages, a study was designed in advance of the 2009 PSID field effort to improve the response rate of the contact update mailing. Families were randomly assigned to the following conditions: mailing design (traditional versus new), $10 as a prepaid versus postpaid incentive, timing and frequency of the mailing (July 2008 versus October 2008 versus both times) and whether or not they were sent a study newsletter. This paper reports on findings with regards to response rates to the mailing and the effect on production outcomes including tracking rates and number of calls during 2009 by these different conditions, examines whether the treatment effects differ by key characteristics of panel members including likelihood of moving and anticipated difficulty in completing an interview, and provides some recommendations for the use of contact update strategies in panel studies.     

Experiments in Producing Nonresponse Bias

While nonresponse rates in household surveys are increasingin most industrialized nations, the increasing rates do notalways produce nonresponse bias in survey estimates. The linkagebetween nonresponse rates and nonresponse bias arises from thepresence of a covariance between response propensity and thesurvey variables of interest. To understand the covariance term,researchers must think about the common influences on responsepropensity and the survey variable. Three variables appear tobe especially relevant in this regard: interest in the surveytopic, reactions to the survey sponsor, and the use of incentives.A set of randomized experiments tests whether those likely tobe interested in the stated survey topic participate at higherrates and whether nonresponse bias on estimates involving variablescentral to the survey topic is affected by this. The experimentsalso test whether incentives disproportionately increase theparticipation of those less interested in the topic. The experimentsshow mixed results in support of these key hypotheses.     

Web Survey Design: Paging versus Scrolling

A key choice in the design of Web surveys is whether to placethe survey questions in a multitude of short pages or in longscrollable pages. There are advantages and disadvantages ofeach approach, but little empirical evidence to guide the choice.In 2003 we conducted a survey of over 21,000 undergraduate students.Ten percent of the 10,000 respondents were directed to the scrollableversion of the survey, containing a single form for each ofthe major sections. The balance was assigned to the paging version,in which questions were presented to be visible without scrolling.The instrument contained a maximum of 268 possible questions,including topics that varied in sensitivity and desirability.The survey also permitted comparison of the effect of skip patternsby implementing skip instructions and hyperlinks in the scrollabledesign, and also recorded time at the end of each of the fivetopical sections. Differences between designs are evaluatedin terms of various forms of nonresponse, univariate and bivariatemeasurement properties, and proxies for respondent burden.