Old Versus New: The Comparative Efficiency of Mail and Internet Surveys

Fisher, Samuel H.; Herrick, Rebekah

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1458613

Cited by 14 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…This represents a response rate of about 5%, a lower response rate than we expected. However, this is consistent with the pattern of decreasing response rates for elitesample surveys (see Fisher and Herrick 2013;Maestas, Neeley, and Richardson 2003). While we do not know the reason for this decline, we suspect it is a manifestation of the tragedy of the commons.…”

Section: Notessupporting

confidence: 83%

Legislative Institutions as a Source of Party Leaders' Influence

Anderson

Butler

Harbridge³

2016

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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Legislators' actions are influenced by party, constituency, and their own views, each weighted differently. Our survey of state legislators finds that legislator's own views are the strongest influence. We also find that institutions are an important source of party leaders' influence.Legislators in states where members rely more on party leaders -states without term limits, with less professional legislatures, and where the majority party controls the agenda -put more weight on leaders' preferences. Beyond direct party influence, the views of party leaders are preemptively incorporated into legislators' preferences when the rules of the legislature make party leaders more powerful.

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Section: Notessupporting

confidence: 83%

Legislative Institutions as a Source of Party Leaders' Influence

Anderson

Butler

Harbridge³

2016

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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“…Our study has at least six main limitations. First, although the response rate of 16.4% is reasonable for legislators and is higher than the response rates of several recent surveys of legislators, it is low by public opinion research standards. Information about the gender, geographic region, and political party of nonrespondents, however, allowed us to develop and apply nonresponse weights.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…The survey was completed by 475 legislators, which is 6.4% of the total population of 7,383 state legislators in the United States. The response rate was 16.4%, which is considered reasonable for state legislators and was higher than the response rates of recent surveys of state legislators . Respondents were significantly more likely than nonrespondents to be female (32.6% vs 23.0%, χ 2 = 19.73, p < .001), from the Midwest US Census Region (30.5% vs 22.5%, χ 2 = 14.27, p < .001), and Democrats (48.8% vs 42.4%, χ 2 = 10.19, p = .001).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 70%

State Legislators’ Support for Behavioral Health Parity Laws: The Influence of Mutable and Fixed Factors at Multiple Levels

et al. 2019

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When communicating with state legislators, advocates for state behavioral health parity laws should emphasize that the laws do not increase insurance premiums. Legislators’ opinions about the impacts of state behavioral health parity laws and the effectiveness of behavioral health treatment have more influence on support for the laws than do their political party affiliation or state‐level contextual factors. Reducing legislators’ stigma toward people with mental illness could increase their support for state behavioral health parity laws Context Comprehensive state behavioral health parity legislation (C‐SBHPL) is an evidence‐based policy that improves access and adherence to behavioral health treatments. However, adoption of C‐SBHPL by state legislators is low. Little is known about how C‐SBHPL evidence might be most effectively disseminated to legislators or how legislators’ fixed characteristics (eg, ideology), mutable characteristics (eg, beliefs about the policy's impact), and state‐level contextual factors might influence their support for behavioral health policies. The purpose of our study is (1) to describe the associations between legislators’ fixed and mutable characteristics, state‐level contextual factors, and support for C‐SBHPL; and (2) to identify the mutable characteristics of legislators independently associated with C‐SBHPL support. Methods We conducted a multimodal (post mail, email, telephone) survey of US state legislators in 2017 (N = 475). The dependent variable was strong support for C‐SBHPL, and the independent variables included legislators’ fixed and mutable characteristics and state‐level contextual factors. We conducted multivariable, multilevel (legislator, state) logistic regression. Findings Thirty‐nine percent of the legislators strongly supported C‐SBHPL. After adjustment, the strongest predictors of C‐SBHPL support were beliefs that C‐SBHPL increases access to behavioral health treatments (aOR = 5.85; 95% CI = 2.41, 14.20) and does not increase insurance premiums (aOR = 2.70; 95% CI = 1.24, 5.90). Stigma toward people with mental illness was inversely associated with support (aOR = 0.86; 95% CI = 0.78, 0.95). After adjustment, ideology was the only fixed characteristic significantly associated with support for C‐SBHPL. State‐level contextual factors did not moderate associations between mutable characteristics and support for C‐SBHPL. Conclusions Legislators’ mutable characteristics are stronger predictors of C‐SBHPL support than are most of their fixed characteristics and all state‐level contextual factors, and thus should be targeted by dissemination efforts.

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“…A response rate of 15% is actually higher than recent Internet surveys that have been shown to help produce representative samples (Fisher and Herrick ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 79%

How Politicians Discount the Opinions of Constituents with Whom They Disagree

Butler

Dynes

2015

American J Political Sci

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We argue that politicians systematically discount the opinions of constituents with whom they disagree and that this "disagreement discounting" is a contributing factor to ideological incongruence. A pair of survey experiments where state and local politicians are the subjects of interest show that public officials rationalize this behavior by assuming that constituents with opposing views are less informed about the issue. This finding applies both to well-established issues that divide the parties as well as to nonpartisan ones. Further, it cannot be explained by politicians' desires to favor the opinions of either copartisans or likely voters. A third survey experiment using a sample of voters shows that the bias is exacerbated by an activity central to representative governance-taking and explaining one's policy positions. This suggests that the job of being a representative exacerbates this bias.

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Old Versus New: The Comparative Efficiency of Mail and Internet Surveys

Cited by 14 publications

References 9 publications

Legislative Institutions as a Source of Party Leaders' Influence

Legislative Institutions as a Source of Party Leaders' Influence

State Legislators’ Support for Behavioral Health Parity Laws: The Influence of Mutable and Fixed Factors at Multiple Levels

How Politicians Discount the Opinions of Constituents with Whom They Disagree

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