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Web Survey Bibliography

Title Assessing Cell Phone Noncoverage Bias Across Different Topics and Subgroups
Year 2010
Access date 30.06.2011
Abstract

Although many national telephone surveys are now conducted using dual frame samples that include cell phones, many other surveys – including most state and local surveys - still do not interview people on cell phones because of cost considerations or difficulties with sampling. As the number of households without landline phones continues to grow, the potential for noncoverage bias also gets larger. Only a few examples of a significant bias have appeared in the literature, but previous research indicates that the potential for bias is greater for certain topics and population subgroups than for others. For example, noncoverage bias has been identified for certain health behaviors among young adults, for presidential vote preference among adults ages 30-39 and – perhaps not surprisingly – for questions about cell phone usage. We update and extend a previous Pew Research Center study of noncoverage bias by analyzing questions included in a variety of surveys conducted in 2008 and 2009. To assess the size of the bias, we compare weighted estimates from landline respondents to those obtained from combined samples of landline and cell respondents, using appropriate statistical tests for overlapping samples. The surveys cover a wide range of topics including public policy issues, personal and national economic ratings, foreign policy views, political values, attitudes about technology, Internet usage and communications behaviors, religious and social values, and attitudes about science. Although little evidence has emerged to indicate that “cell mostly” respondents are underrepresented in landline surveys, we also will evaluate whether telephone usage patterns among dual households (with both landlines and cell phones) are associated with substantive responses.

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Year of publication2010
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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