Recontact

The term recontact has more than one meaning in survey research. It is used to refer to the multiple attempts that often must be made to make contact with a sampled element, such as a household or person, in order to gain cooperation and gather data and achieve good response rates. Recontacting hard-to-reach respondents is the most effective way to reduce survey nonresponse that is due to noncontact. This holds whether the mode of contact is via multiple mailings, multiple emails, multiple telephone calls, or multiple in-person visits.

The other meaning of recontact in survey research refers to the efforts that are made to validate completed interviews soon after they have been completed, by having a supervisory staff member recontact the respondent to validate that the interview was in fact completed and that it was completed accurately. These recontacts often are conducted via telephone even when the original interview was completed by an interviewer face-to-face with the respondent. Recontacts of this type are reasoned to reduce the likelihood of interviewer falsification, assuming that interviewers know that such quality assurance efforts are carried out by survey management.