Investigating Respondent Multitasking and Distraction Using Self-reports and Interviewers’ Observations in a Dual-frame Telephone Survey
Previous research has shown that people often engage in other activities while responding to surveys and that respondents’ multitasking generally has no effect on indicators of data quality (e.g., item non-response, non-differentiation). One of the limitations of these studies is that they have mostly used self-reported measures of respondents’ multitasking. We build on prior research by combining self-reported measures of multitasking with interviewers’ observations of respondents’ distractions recorded after each interview. The dataset comes from a statewide dual-frame random digit dial telephone survey of adults in a Midwestern state (n = 1,006) who were queried on topics related to awareness …