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The telephone solicitor has become an annoying fixture of everyday life, interrupting dinner, invading our privacy. Now that bad reputation is rubbing off on research.
Cooperation rates are falling all over the country for those who conduct academic and political polls via the telephone. Here at the University, researchers and faculty are wrestling with different ways to alter the format of the Carolina Poll after a dismal cooperation rate was posted in the fall.
The cooperation rate (completed interviews divided by total contacts) in the fall Carolina Poll was just 39 percent. In the 1980s -- which social scientists refer to as the "Golden Age of Polling" -- the average cooperation rate was close to 70 percent.
The poll, in its 23rd year, is the combined project of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (JOMC) and the Institute for Research in Social Science (IRSS). The steering committee has decided to shave the number of questions on the spring poll in an attempt to raise the cooperation rate while considering other changes.
In the past, JOMC and IRSS have each placed 20 questions on the poll's list, in addition to the 25 demographic questions that both departments deem essential, for a total of 65. This spring's Carolina Poll, to be conducted March 15-22, will feature 17 questions from JOMC, 18 questions from IRSS and 20 demographic questions, for a total of 55. Next year, the number of questions will likely drop even further.
The poor cooperation rate, though, is not a sign of too many questions as much as it is an indication of an ever-changing telephone culture, the poll's directors agree. With an onslaught of telemarketers bombarding our home phones these days, residents are more hesitant than ever to agree to take part in any survey, even one for academic purposes.
"What's happening in the 90s is that respect for the telephone has begun to decline," said Phil Meyer, Knight chair in journalism, who has been involved with the poll off and on for almost 20 years. "It used to be that if the telephone rang and it was long distance, a hush would fall over the whole house. You would treat that call with great respect. Telephones have been used so much by marketers, and there's so many technological ways to screen calls, what with caller ID, answering machines, call waiting, that we don't have that respect for our telephones anymore."
Beverly Wiggins, associate director for research development at IRSS and chair of the National Network of State Polls, said that the issue is being intensely discussed in the academic journals that cover social science and public opinion. "It's the topic at all the professional meetings," she said.
In an article on the topic he wrote for USA Today in November, Meyer referred to the University of Illinois Survey Research Laboratory, which conducted a statewide poll on outdoor recreation in the same way in four different years during a span from 1987 to 1996. The cooperation rate for the first three polls was fairly stable with a high of 73 percent, but it crashed to 49 percent in 1996.
As a result of this trend, the Carolina Poll's steering committee is exploring alternate methods to boost the cooperation rate. Suggestions have included experimenting with the traditional mail system or electronic mail, or hiring students to conduct the interviews, a method used for IRSS's Southern Focus Poll, instead of relying on journalism students who are required to do the Carolina Poll's interviews.
No decisions have been made to alter significantly the Carolina Poll. But as long as telemarketers continue their invasive methods, researchers will face an uphill battle against declining cooperation.
FYI Research provided by Graduate Studies and Research.
Writer: Mark Briggs
Editor: Neil Caudle
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