Cooperation

Factors Affecting Cooperation

There is a wide body of literature regarding the theory, application, and relationship of the factors that affect cooperation. Examples of the major types of factors that can affect cooperation include the following:

• Level of effort used in recruiting respondents
• Respondents' interest in the topic of the survey
• Study's mode of data collection
• Skill of interviewers in interviewer-administered surveys
• Information given to respondent prior to his or her engaging in survey
• Length/burden of the survey
• Whether or not incentives are offered
• Characteristics of the population of interest

Cooperation in Random Samples

Statistical theory explains that data should be collected from all those selected for inclusion (sampled) in probabilistic samples. In practice, this is seldom achieved. Any individual who is selected but does not participate in a study is termed a “nonrespondent” and may (or may not) induce nonresponse bias. One possible scenario, for example, is that the data from a survey yielding poor cooperation levels may be heavily distorted if nonresponders differ systematically in nonnegligible ways from responders.

Although there is common agreement that general cooperation levels within the United States have been in a state of decline for years, many within the survey research community believe that poor cooperation levels have been overstated as a threat to validity in random samples. Nevertheless, cooperation continues to be viewed as one of the important indicators of the performance of a survey and is properly considered in the context of both the study's target population and variables of interest.

The term cooperation is strongly associated with probabilistic samples in quantitative surveys because of its connection to the validity of random samples. However, cooperation plays an important role in both quantitative and qualitative research.

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