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This article illustrates some effects of dynamic adaptive design in a large government survey. We present findings from the 2015 National Survey of College Graduates Adaptive Design Experiment, including results and discussion of sample representativeness, response rates, and cost. We also consider the effect of truncating data collection (examining alternative stopping rules) on these metrics. In this experiment, we monitored sample representativeness continuously and altered data collection procedures—increasing or decreasing contact effort—to improve it. Cases that were overrepresented in the achieved sample were assigned to more passive modes of data collection (web or paper) or withheld from the group of cases that received survey reminders, whereas underrepresented cases were assigned to telephone follow-ups. The findings suggest that a dynamic adaptive survey design can improve a data quality indicator (R-indicators) without increasing cost or reducing response rate. We also find that a dynamic adaptive survey design has the potential to reduce the length of the data collection period, control cost, and increase timeliness of data delivery, if sample representativeness is prioritized over increasing the survey response rate.

The movie Kinsey opens with a scene of the great sex researcher being interviewed by one of his students. During the course of the interview, Kinsey not only reveals some surprising facts about his own sexual history, but also takes the opportunity to train the student in the fine art of interviewing. Much of the training concerns body language -eye gaze is important to indicate that you are listening, sitting far away creates a perception of distance, frowning will prevent the subject from relaxing. Kinsey's unfortunate student, however, has a hard time controlling his nonverbal behavior as the interview delves more and more deeply into the personal life of his mentor.Survey researchers have long worried about the unconscious effects of interviewer appearance, including nonverbal behaviors such as these, on the responses of survey interviewees. For this reason (as well as to reduce costs) various communication technologies that allow partial or total self-administration of the interview have been adopted by survey researchers in attempts to objectify the survey process. Self-administered paper and pencil questionnaires, the telephone, computer assisted self interviews and then the Web survey have been thought to hold the answer to the sorts of bias that might be introduced into surveys by the effects of the face-to-face contact of two humans in conversation. The telephone transmits only voice information about the interviewer, and other methods (in the text format most often used to present questionnaires) removes the interviewer altogether. A paradox exists, however, in the debate surrounding the use of these technologies. On the one hand, many researchers continue to