How to deal with voicemail and company's numbers?

[sanittawan]

I've made phone calls to around half of the numbers on my list and so far only 14% of the numbers are valid numbers. By valid, I mean the calls can be connected, somebody answered the calls or they went to mailboxes. Among that 14 %, I have experienced hangups or refusal which mean Response = 0. It seems that unfortunately, the majority of the numbers (so far) are not valid numbers. Should I attempt to make a second phone call to numbers that went to mailboxes?

On a separate matter, should I ignore numbers that belong to companies? I have called a number that has an automated phone answering system giving me an option to speak with an operator, but I am guessing that it's not the purpose of this survey.

Thank you in advance!

[tonofshell]

I also wonder if by calling from an out-of-state number, if that's keeping many of the people in those valid numbers from even picking up. Many phone scammers these days generate a fake number with the same area code and 3 middle numbers as the number they're calling, as people seem to be more likely to pick up a call from a number that seems "local".

I don't believe it's legal to spoof a phone number, but we might see more success with converting valid numbers to pick-ups by making the calls from a number with the same area code. A VOIP service like Google Voice, that would allow you to pick an available number in any area code, would probably be the best way to go about accomplishing that. It would definitely be interesting to try after making some calls from a personal number and see if there's any effect.

[rickecon]

@sanittawan You definitely only need to attempt to call each number once. Just do the assignment with whatever response rate you get. For this assignment, I really don't care about the result, i.e., the correlation between age and 2016 voting choice. I just want you to get some experience collecting survey data. It makes a lot of the ideas concrete about sample selection, response rates, and post stratification.

[rickecon]

@tonofshell Don't set up a spoof number for this assignment. If there is any deception it could jeopardize my ability to assign this.

[tonofshell]

@rickecon I understand your concerns, and certainly was not intending to jeopardize the assignment. I know we aren't covering research ethics yet, but this does leave me with some questions.

• In the age of cell phones and VOIP services, is it reasonable to assume the locale associated to a phone number by its area code is accurate to the current location or purpose of the call? Do people trust the rough locality of a phone number enough, where using a phone number from a different area would be considered deceptive to the average person?

• Would using my own personal phone number for a school project, which is from Massachusetts rather than Illinois, be deceptive? Also, shouldn't the number I use represent my identity as a University of Chicago student conducting research, not as some guy that grew up in Massachusetts?

• If we clearly identify ourselves as student researchers from the University of Chicago as soon as the respondent picks up, can using a different number still be considered deceptive?

• Certainly using numbers from different locales would affect whether or not the respondent picked up, but does it affect whether the respondent is willing to participate in the survey?

• Does using numbers from different locales create significant risk to the respondent in the survey?

• If using a different number other than a researcher's personal number is considered deceptive, is this offset by the possible risk to researchers of calling up strangers with their personal number?