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Sample Control and
Confidentiality
A survey
without any follow-up or “refusal conversion” is guaranteed to suffer from
a low response rate. Refusal
conversion is the process in interviewer-conducted surveys of assigning an
experienced interviewer to recontact those who initially refused to participate. Keeping records on who has and has not
responded to a survey is called sample control.
On the
other hand, people are more likely to respond to survey where their answers
are confidential. Confidentiality
and sample control can sometimes work against each other. Common survey practice is keep sample
control and survey responses separate by assigning control numbers. The control number is stored with the
survey response data and can be linked back to the sample control
information, but name, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and other
control information is not stored with the data. This separation allows the data to remain
confidential to any of the data users.
An
organization that violates confidentiality will likely feel the wrath of
those who know their confidentiality was violated and will make any future
research projects less productive.
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