UNDERSTANDING THE DECISION TO PARTICIPATE IN A SURVEY

The lack of full participation in sample surveys threatens theinferential value of the survey method. We review a set of conceptualdevelopments and experimental findings that appear to be informativeabout causes of survey participation; offer an integration ofthat work with findings from the more traditional statisticaland survey methodological literature on nonresponse; and, giventhe theoretical structure, deduce potentially promising pathsof research toward the understanding of survey participation.     

EVALUATION OF A COMPUTER-ASSISTED SELF-INTERVIEW COMPONENT IN A COMPUTER-ASSISTED PERSONAL INTERVIEW SURVEY

This article examines respondent reactions to and performanceon a self-administered component of a computer-assisted personalinterview survey on self-images, conducted in the Detroit areain 1992. Although respondents were encouraged to complete thecomputer-assisted self-interview items them selves, only 79percent of those interviewed actually did so, while for 14 percentthe interviewer completed the items and for the remaining 7percent the interviewer read the questions while the respondententered the responses. We find that the decision to self-completethe computer-assisted self-interview items is re lated to factorssuch as respondents' age, education and com puter experience.This suggests that both capacity (literacy and vision) and motivationaffect the choice of completion. We also find differences insubstantive responses and data quality be tween self-completersand those who use interviewer assistance. These findings haveimplications for nonresponse error and data quality for self-administeredcomponents of interviews, particu larly those using computer-administration.