Refusal Conversion

Refusal conversions are the procedures that survey researchers use to gain cooperation from a sampled respondent who has refused an initial survey request. Refusal conversion may include different versions of the survey introductions and other written scripts or materials (e.g. cover letters), study contact rules, incentives, and interviewer characteristics and training. This is a common procedure for many surveys, but it requires careful consideration of the details of the refusal conversion efforts and the potential costs versus the potential benefits of the effort.

The goal of converting initial refusals is to raise the survey response rate, under the assumption that this may lower the potential for refusal-related unit nonresponse error. The research literature contains reports of successfully converting refusals in telephone surveys between 5% and 40% of the time. There is little reported in the research literature about whether refusal conversions efforts are effective in reducing nonresponse bias.

Gaining cooperation from a potential respondent during initial contacts is much more effective than attempts to “convert” that respondent after an initial refusal has been encountered. Thus, all researchers [Page 705]should pay attention to survey design and administration to effectively maximize cooperation and minimize refusals for initial contacts. However, despite researchers' best efforts to avoid refusals, they will still occur; thus, refusal conversion is an avenue to gain some amount of completed questionnaires from initial refusers. The basic procedures used to carry out the administration of the survey may need to be modified during refusal conversion attempts.

Refusal conversions often are attempted in surveys that are conducted via mail or the Internet. In these survey modes, refusal conversion essentially is part and parcel of the larger process of recontacting respondents who have not yet returned a completed questionnaire under the assumption that some portion of them initially have decided to refuse to do so. Procedures for doing these follow-up contacts of initial nonresponders in mail and Internet surveys are described elsewhere in this encyclopedia and will not be discussed here in any detail. Instead, the remainder of this entry focuses mostly on refusal conversion as applied in face-to-face and telephone interviewing.