Assessing Response Fatigue in Phone Surveys : Experimental Evidence on Dietary Diversity in Ethiopia

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred interest in the use of remote data collection techniques, including phone surveys, in developing country contexts. This interest has sparked new methodological work focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of d...

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Main Authors: Abay, Kibrom A., Berhane, Guush, Hoddinott, John, Tafere, Kibrom
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/526651618930138065/Assessing-Response-Fatigue-in-Phone-Surveys-Experimental-Evidence-on-Dietary-Diversity-in-Ethiopia
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35483
id okr-10986-35483
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-354832022-09-20T00:10:14Z Assessing Response Fatigue in Phone Surveys : Experimental Evidence on Dietary Diversity in Ethiopia Abay, Kibrom A. Berhane, Guush Hoddinott, John Tafere, Kibrom DIETARY DIVERSITY PHONE SURVEY RESPONSE FATIGUE CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEY The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred interest in the use of remote data collection techniques, including phone surveys, in developing country contexts. This interest has sparked new methodological work focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of remote data collection, the use of incentives to increase response rates, and how to address sample representativeness. By contrast, attention given to associated response fatigue and its implications remains limited. This study designed and implemented an experiment that randomized the placement of a survey module on women’s dietary diversity in the survey instrument. The study also examines potential differential vulnerabilities to fatigue across food groups and respondents. The findings show that delaying the timing of mothers’ food consumption module by 15 minutes leads to 8-17 percent decrease in the dietary diversity score and a 28 percent decrease in the number of mothers who consumed a minimum of four dietary groups. This is driven by underreporting of infrequently consumed foods; the experimentally induced delay in the timing of mothers’ food consumption module led to decreases of 40 and 11 percent in the reporting of consumption of animal source foods and fruits and vegetables, respectively. The results are robust to changes in model specification and pass falsification tests. Responses by older and less educated mothers and those from larger households are more vulnerable to measurement error due to fatigue. 2021-04-22T14:46:00Z 2021-04-22T14:46:00Z 2021-04 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/526651618930138065/Assessing-Response-Fatigue-in-Phone-Surveys-Experimental-Evidence-on-Dietary-Diversity-in-Ethiopia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35483 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9636 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Africa Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) Ethiopia
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic DIETARY DIVERSITY
PHONE SURVEY
RESPONSE FATIGUE
CORONAVIRUS
COVID-19
DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEY
spellingShingle DIETARY DIVERSITY
PHONE SURVEY
RESPONSE FATIGUE
CORONAVIRUS
COVID-19
DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEY
Abay, Kibrom A.
Berhane, Guush
Hoddinott, John
Tafere, Kibrom
Assessing Response Fatigue in Phone Surveys : Experimental Evidence on Dietary Diversity in Ethiopia
geographic_facet Africa
Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE)
Ethiopia
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9636
description The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred interest in the use of remote data collection techniques, including phone surveys, in developing country contexts. This interest has sparked new methodological work focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of remote data collection, the use of incentives to increase response rates, and how to address sample representativeness. By contrast, attention given to associated response fatigue and its implications remains limited. This study designed and implemented an experiment that randomized the placement of a survey module on women’s dietary diversity in the survey instrument. The study also examines potential differential vulnerabilities to fatigue across food groups and respondents. The findings show that delaying the timing of mothers’ food consumption module by 15 minutes leads to 8-17 percent decrease in the dietary diversity score and a 28 percent decrease in the number of mothers who consumed a minimum of four dietary groups. This is driven by underreporting of infrequently consumed foods; the experimentally induced delay in the timing of mothers’ food consumption module led to decreases of 40 and 11 percent in the reporting of consumption of animal source foods and fruits and vegetables, respectively. The results are robust to changes in model specification and pass falsification tests. Responses by older and less educated mothers and those from larger households are more vulnerable to measurement error due to fatigue.
format Working Paper
author Abay, Kibrom A.
Berhane, Guush
Hoddinott, John
Tafere, Kibrom
author_facet Abay, Kibrom A.
Berhane, Guush
Hoddinott, John
Tafere, Kibrom
author_sort Abay, Kibrom A.
title Assessing Response Fatigue in Phone Surveys : Experimental Evidence on Dietary Diversity in Ethiopia
title_short Assessing Response Fatigue in Phone Surveys : Experimental Evidence on Dietary Diversity in Ethiopia
title_full Assessing Response Fatigue in Phone Surveys : Experimental Evidence on Dietary Diversity in Ethiopia
title_fullStr Assessing Response Fatigue in Phone Surveys : Experimental Evidence on Dietary Diversity in Ethiopia
title_full_unstemmed Assessing Response Fatigue in Phone Surveys : Experimental Evidence on Dietary Diversity in Ethiopia
title_sort assessing response fatigue in phone surveys : experimental evidence on dietary diversity in ethiopia
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2021
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/526651618930138065/Assessing-Response-Fatigue-in-Phone-Surveys-Experimental-Evidence-on-Dietary-Diversity-in-Ethiopia
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35483
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