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Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda (2013)

Chapter: Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
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Appendix C

Biographical Sketches of Panel Members

Roger Tourangeau (Chair) is a vice president at Westat. Before joining Westat, he was a research professor at the University of Michigan Survey Research Center and director of the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (JPSM) at the University of Maryland, College Park. Earlier in his career, he worked at the Gallup Organization and the NORC at the University of Chicago. He has helped design and conduct studies involving a wide range of topics, including secondary and postsecondary education, labor force participation, privacy attitudes, health-care costs and utilization, and sexual behavior. He is well known for his methodological research on the impact of different modes of data collection and on the cognitive processes underlying survey responses. He is the lead author of a book on the latter topic (The Psychology of Survey Response, coauthored with Lance Rips and Kenneth Rasinski, 2000); this book received the 2006 American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Book Award. He is also one of the coeditors of a collection of papers (Cognition and Survey Research, 1999) from a conference on cognitive aspects of survey response. In addition, he has published many papers on mode effects and other methodological issues in surveys. Dr. Tourangeau has received several awards over the course of his career. In 2002, he received the Helen Dinerman Award for his work on the cognitive aspects of survey methodology. This is the highest honor given by the World Association for Public Opinion Research. He received the 2005 AAPOR Innovators Award (along with Tom Jabine, Miron Straf, and Judith Tanur). He was made a fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1999 for his work on survey measurement error

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×

and his contributions to federal surveys as a sampling statistician. He is a member of the Committee on National Statistics and has served on the Panel on Residence Rules in the Decennial Census and the Panel on Design of the 2010 Census Program of Evaluations and Experiments. He holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University.

Nancy Bates is a senior researcher for survey methodology at the U.S. Census Bureau. She has responsibility for conducting original research and making developmental contributions to the field of survey methodology. She conducts experimental design and testing with scholars within and outside the federal government, private research, and academia, and investigates new theories and practices in data collection methodology. She also serves as principal consultant to Census Bureau staff on methodological problems. She holds an M.A. in applied sociology from the University of Oklahoma.

Suzanne M. Bianchi is distinguished professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and holds the Dorothy Meier chair in social equities. During 2010–2011, she was a Russell Sage Visiting Scholar. She was chair of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, from 2005 to 2009. She is a former director of the Maryland Population Research Center. She is a past president of the Population Association of America and past editor of the journal Demography. Prior to joining the Maryland faculty in 1994, she served as assistant chief for social and demographic statistics in the population division of the U.S. Census Bureau. Her research focuses on the American family, time use, and gender equality. She has coauthored four books that investigate the changes in family life and gender equality in the latter half of the 20th century. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

J. Michael Brick is a senior statistician, vice president, director of survey methods, and associate director of the statistical staff at Westat. With more than 30 years of experience, he has special expertise in sample design and estimation for large surveys, the theory and practice of telephone surveys, the techniques of total quality management and survey quality control, nonresponse and bias evaluation, and survey methodology. He has contributed to the statistical and substantive aspects of numerous studies and to statistical methodology research in several areas, including establishment, education, transportation, and product injury studies. Dr. Brick is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and a research professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his Ph.D. in statistics from American University.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×

Douglas D. Heckathorn is professor of sociology at Cornell University. He has conducted research in formal sociological theory, policy analysis, social psychology, and quantitative methods. His research focuses on developing means for studying the structure of very large social networks using a new network-based sampling method, respondent-driven sampling. This method provides the means both for drawing probability samples of hard-to-reach and hidden populations and for studying their network structure. It has been applied in studies of a variety of populations, including injection drug users and jazz musicians. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Kansas.

Larry Hedges is Board of Trustees professor of statistics and social policy and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He holds appointments in statistics, psychology, and education and social policy. Previously, he was the Stella M. Rowley distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago. His research straddles many fields—in particular, those of sociology, psychology, and educational policy. He is best known for his work to develop statistical methods for meta-analysis (a statistical analysis of the results of multiple studies that combines their findings) in the social, medical, and biological sciences. It is a key component of evidence-based social research. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Statistical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Educational Research Association. He is vice chair of the board of trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation, cochair pro tem of the board of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, and president of the Society for Research Synthesis Methods. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematical methods in educational research from Stanford University.

Arthur Kennickell is an assistant director of the Division of Research and Statistics at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In this position, he serves as head of the official statistical unit and oversees the conduct and development of the Survey of Consumer Finances and other Federal Reserve surveys. He has been on the staff of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System since 1984. His areas of expertise are data collection and estimation methodology, microeconomics, and macroeconomics. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the 2007 recipient of the Julius Shiskin Award for Economic Statistics. He has B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×

Kristen Olson is an assistant professor of survey research and methodology and sociology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her areas of research include nonresponse bias and nonresponse adjustments, the relationship between nonresponse and measurement errors, and interviewer effects. Her research has appeared in Public Opinion Quarterly, the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, and Environmental Health Perspectives and is forthcoming in Sociological Methods and Research and Field Methods. She is currently coinvestigator on a grant funded by the National Institutes of Health to study health, mental health, and HIV risk behaviors among homeless women in three cities in the United States and is conducting research funded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Department of Agriculture with the National Science Foundation. She is also editor of the research synthesis section of Public Opinion Quarterly. She has taught short courses on nonresponse bias studies for AAPOR, the Washington, DC, chapter of AAPOR, the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, and the Southern Association for Public Opinion Research. She earned her B.A. in mathematical methods in the social sciences and sociology from Northwestern University, her M.S. in survey methodology from the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and her Ph.D. in survey methodology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Nora Cate Schaeffer is the Sewell Bascom professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she also serves as faculty director of the University of Wisconsin Survey Center, teaches courses in survey research methods, and conducts research on questionnaire design and interaction during survey interviews. She currently serves as a member of the Public Opinion Quarterly Advisory Board of AAPOR and of the General Social Survey Board of Overseers. Her service for the National Research Council includes the Panel on the Design of the 2010 Census Program of Evaluations and Experiments, the Committee on National Statistics, the Panel to Review Research and Development Statistics at the National Science Foundation, and the Panel to Evaluate Alternative Census Methods. Other previous service includes the American Statistical Association Technical Advisory Committee on the Survey of Income and Program Participation; the Technical Review Committee for the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth; the National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences; and the governing council of AAPOR. She has also served on the editorial boards of Public Opinion Quarterly, Sociological Methods and Research, and Sociological Methodology. She is a fellow of the American Statistical Association. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×

Frank Stafford is a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists and is principal investigator of the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. His active research areas include issues of time allocation, the economics of childcare, and cross-national comparative studies on the role of information technology. Other research interests include family decisions about wealth, pensions, and savings as they relate to individual mental and physical health through time. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×
Page 146
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×
Page 147
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×
Page 148
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×
Page 149
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members." National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18293.
×
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For many household surveys in the United States, responses rates have been steadily declining for at least the past two decades. A similar decline in survey response can be observed in all wealthy countries. Efforts to raise response rates have used such strategies as monetary incentives or repeated attempts to contact sample members and obtain completed interviews, but these strategies increase the costs of surveys. This review addresses the core issues regarding survey nonresponse. It considers why response rates are declining and what that means for the accuracy of survey results. These trends are of particular concern for the social science community, which is heavily invested in obtaining information from household surveys. The evidence to date makes it apparent that current trends in nonresponse, if not arrested, threaten to undermine the potential of household surveys to elicit information that assists in understanding social and economic issues. The trends also threaten to weaken the validity of inferences drawn from estimates based on those surveys. High nonresponse rates create the potential or risk for bias in estimates and affect survey design, data collection, estimation, and analysis.

The survey community is painfully aware of these trends and has responded aggressively to these threats. The interview modes employed by surveys in the public and private sectors have proliferated as new technologies and methods have emerged and matured. To the traditional trio of mail, telephone, and face-to-face surveys have been added interactive voice response (IVR), audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI), web surveys, and a number of hybrid methods. Similarly, a growing research agenda has emerged in the past decade or so focused on seeking solutions to various aspects of the problem of survey nonresponse; the potential solutions that have been considered range from better training and deployment of interviewers to more use of incentives, better use of the information collected in the data collection, and increased use of auxiliary information from other sources in survey design and data collection. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda also documents the increased use of information collected in the survey process in nonresponse adjustment.

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