Dear colleagues,

We invite submissions to our session on "Using Paradata to Improve Survey Data Quality" at the 6th Conference of the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) in Reykjavik, Iceland, 13-17 July 2015.

Summary:
“Paradata” are measures generated as a by-product of the survey data collection process. Prominent examples of paradata are data available from the sampling frame, call-record data in CATI surveys, keystroke information from CAI, timestamp files, observations of interviewer behavior or respondents’ response latencies (see Kreuter 2013 for an overview). These data can potentially be used to enrich questionnaire responses or to provide additional information about the survey (non-)participation process. In many cases paradata are available at no (or little) additional cost, but the theoretical basis for using paradata as indicator for survey data quality is very underdeveloped. Some examples about the use of paradata are:

Paradata in fieldwork monitoring and nonresponse research: Paradata are often used in the survey management context. With control charts survey practitioners can monitor fieldwork progress and interviewer performance. They are also indispensable in responsive designs as real-time information about fieldwork and survey outcomes which affect costs and errors. However, their role as indicator for interviewer or fieldwork effects, as well as predictors for nonresponse is unclear.

Paradata to understand respondent behavior: Paradata might aid assessing of the quality of survey responses, e.g. by means of response latencies or back-tracking. Research has used paradata to identify uncertainty in the answers given by respondents, e.g., if respondents frequently alter their answers. In this new strand of research, however, indicators might still be confounded and tap into multiple dimensions of the response process (e.g., response latencies may be an indicator for retrieval problems and/or satisficing).

Proposals must be submitted online by 15 January 2015 via the conference webpage:
http://www.europeansurveyresearch.org/conference

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us:

Volker Stocké, University of Kassel, Germany, volker.stocke@uni-kassel.de.

Jochen Mayerl, TU Kaiserslautern, Germany, Jochen.Mayerl@sowi.uni-kl.de.

Oliver Lipps, Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS), Lausanne, Switzerland, oliver.lipps@fors.unil.ch.

Annelies Blom, University of Mannheim, Germany, blom@uni-mannheim.de