Public Opinion Quarterly Advance Access published online on January 26, 2009
Public Opinion Quarterly, doi:10.1093/poq/nfn063
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Social Desirability Bias in CATI, IVR, and Web Surveys
The Effects of Mode and Question Sensitivity
Address correspondence to Frauke Kreuter; e-mail: FKreuter{at}survey.umd.edu
Although it is well established that self-administered questionnaires tend to yield fewer reports in the socially desirable direction than do interviewer-administered questionnaires, less is known about whether different modes of self-administration vary in their effects on socially desirable responding. In addition, most mode comparison studies lack validation data and thus cannot separate the effects of differential nonresponse bias from the effects of differences in measurement error. This paper uses survey and record data to examine mode effects on the reporting of potentially sensitive information by a sample of recent university graduates. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of three modes of data collection—conventional computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), interactive voice recognition (IVR), and the Web—and were asked about both desirable and undesirable attributes of their academic experiences. University records were used to evaluate the accuracy of the answers and to examine differences in nonresponse bias by mode. Web administration increased the level of reporting of sensitive information and reporting accuracy relative to conventional CATI, with IVR intermediate between the other two modes. Both mode of data collection and the actual status of the respondent influenced whether respondents found an item sensitive.
FRAUKE KREUTER is with the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, 1218 LeFrak Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. STANLEY PRESSER is with the Sociology Department and the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland. ROGER TOURANGEAU is with the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland and the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. We thank Carolina Casas-Cordero, Elisabeth Coutts, James Druckman, Stephanie Eckman, Michael Lemay, and four anonymous reviewers for critical comments and helpful suggestions. We are especially grateful to Katharine Abraham and Mirta Galesic who oversaw the data collection and to the Alumni Association and Registrar's Office for their cooperation. Students in the JPSM Practicum class provided assistance in the development of the study. Michael Lemay was of great help in preparing the data sets.