Response Rates
Contents
Description
Calculation
The predominant formulas for response rates come from AAPOR.
Response Rate 1 (RR1) is a simple rate of complete interviews (I) over all other types of presumed eligible cases: partial interviews (P), refusals (R), non-contacts (NC), others (O, a catch-all category for types of non-response that aren't necessarily a 'refusal'), and cases with unknown eligibility (UNK).
RR1 is functionally an underestimate, because we expect some number of cases with unknown eligibility to actually be ineligible. This sets up Response Rate 3 (RR3), which incorporates an estimate of e, the eligibility rate among those unknown cases.
A response rate's calculation largely flows from the determination of case dispositions. In any survey, there is an unclear distinction between a partial interview and a refusal. Many surveys furthermore allow questions to be implicitly skipped, explicitly refused, or include a 'Prefer not to answer' option. It becomes unclear what distinction functionally exists between complete interviews, partial interviews, and refusals.