Newswise — Perhaps as never before, national polls generated almost daily discussion of how voters felt about this year's presidential candidates and related political issues.
The reliability of telephone-based survey data is becoming a major topic itself among professionals in the field, as well as news-gathering and other organizations that depend on them. With fewer and fewer people using--and paying for--landline service, polling organizations have begun to seek better ways to effectively collect data from the general public.
At a recent panel discussion on wireless survey methodology sponsored by Mississippi State's Social Science Research Center, several survey specialists discussed how the methodology seems to be changing to keep up with evolving human behavior patterns.
National research has indicated that nearly as many U.S. citizens now live without landline telephones as did nearly 50 years ago, when some 20 percent of homes had no phone service. Today, about 16 percent of the public depends solely on a cell phone, according to the National Health Interview Survey.
The survey was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, which regularly employs comprehensive door-to-door surveys.
Stephen Blumberg, a senior NCHS scientist, and John Bremer, an authority on Internet surveying and a senior research scientist with Harris Interactive, were among panelists taking part in the campus panel discussion.
Both Blumberg and Bremer said shortcomings of landline phone surveys can produce data that doesn't accurately reflect general public feelings. Blumberg specifically cited the results of research showing that younger and non-white people living in urban areas and those with lower incomes tend to be less likely to have landlines at home.
"We're back to the 1960s when it comes to prevalence of landline telephones in homes," Blumberg said. People who use only cell phones represent demographics other than those who use landline phones, making them a key group to have in surveys, he added.
Robert McMillen, an assistant MSU professor of psychology and organizer of the panel discussion, said information on the representativeness of surveys determine their worth. As people switch from landlines to cell phones, "It's important for researchers to retool their surveying methods," he emphasized.
With telephone-use patterns evolving, survey professionals likely will move from a major dependence on traditional landline telephone methods to a combination of methods.
Bremer said a current response rate as low as 10 percent for telephone surveys suggests why Internet research will continue to grow.
"I think you're going to see more surveys becoming multimedia," Blumberg concluded.
Founded more than a half century ago, MSU's Social Science Research Center has developed a national reputation for its studies of the social, economic, political, human resource, and social-environmental problems facing the state, nation and world.
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