Journal of Electoral Studies

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Comparisons of Estimation Efficiencies among Various Dual-frame Telephone Survey Weighting Procedures
Yung-tai Hung
2021 / 11Volume 29, No.2

Abstract

This study looks into issues evolving from dual-frame telephone surveys carried out in Taiwan. Some issues have been resolved, while others are still being explored. Directions of future studies are also suggested.
This study employs indicators of election prediction errors to evaluate the effectiveness and pros and cons of various estimation procedures for combining data sets collected from dual-frame telephone surveys.
There are basically three types of combining dual-frame survey data, namely, all landline survey data plus those of cell-phone only; all cell-phone survey data plus those of landline only, and combing both sets of data according to their coverage proportions in the population. This study shows that the landline phone survey samples differ systematically from the cell-phone survey samples in many demographical characteristics. Using a total predicting error indicator to compare the results of various estimation procedures in three election results, namely, the 2016 presidential election, the 2018 referendum on the same-sex marriage law, and the 2020 presidential election, this study finds the following: (1) The original data collected from the landline survey fares the best. (2) Adjusting data by applying weights derived from government household registration data enlarges the prediction errors for the landline phone survey but performs slightly better for the cell-phone survey. (3) Due to selection bias from cell-phone survey samples, the prediction errors tend to be further away from the true election results. The damage done does not redeem its good intention for correcting the coverage shortcomings caused by the traditional landline phone survey.
The study also suggests several issues to be explored in future studies: (1) Investigate further the characteristics of using both landline and cell-phone samples for landline and cell-phone surveys. (2) Investigate the mode effects on landline and cell-phone surveys. (3) Investigate the performance of dual-frame telephone surveys in areas other than electoral studies.

Keywords

Coverage rate

cell-phone only

dual-frame telephone survey

post-stratified estimating procedure

selection bias

election forecasting

Allocation of Dual-Frame Telephone Survey for Given Cost
Hung-chia Chen
2019 / 05Volume 29, No.2

Abstract

With the increase of cell phone usage in recent years, traditional landline surveys face a problem of incomplete coverage. It is now necessary to conduct dual-frame telephone surveys that includes cell phone samples and landline samples. Designing a dual-frame telephone survey requires a decision on the sample allocation. The allocation of the sample to the dual-frame associates with the unequal weighting effect and the survey cost. Therefore, this study aimed to illustrate an optimal allocation of respondents from landline and cellphone frames that result in the lowest unequal weight effect (i.e., the highest effective sample size) for a given cost by using the relative unit cost of obtaining a cell respondent compared to a landline respondent from a comparison study of survey cost, and an unequal weighting effect from “Public Value and Electronic Governance.” The results suggested that the optimal design will have 64.18% of the sample completes from the landline frame, and 35.82% of the sample completes from the cellphone frame in a cell-phone-only screened design. Additionally, this paper shows that the sample sizes of cell phone only could be a function of unequal weight effect and survey cost. Thus, the organizer of the cell-phoneonly screened design could substitute parameters into the function depending on different situations.

Keywords

cellphone survey

effective sample size

survey cost

dual-frame telephone survey

unequal weighting effect