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'Design Phases' and 'Responsive Design'

One of the sticking points that I've had with reconciling 'adaptive designs' and 'responsive designs' has been Groves and Heeringa's description of responsive design which includes the notion of 'design phases.' Their definition says: "A design phase is a time period of a data collection during which the same set of sampling frame, mode of data collection, sample design, recruitment protocols and measurement conditions are extant."

This definition didn't seem to fit too well with the notion of adaptive design. In adaptive design, the treatments are tailored to the individual. In the survey context, a treatment can be an incentive, additional calls, etc. The tailoring variable is a time-varying variable -- that is, it changes during the field period. When a persons value on the tailoring variable changes, their treatment changes as well. Under this approach, the design phase is a person-level attribute. One person can be in 'phase 1' while another is in 'phase 2'. There is no time period which can claim a common treatment protocol for all units.

I suppose we could say that the notion of design phase is not an essential aspect of responsive design. If we ignore it, then I'm comfortable saying that adaptive designs are a subset of responsive designs.

We might also redefine phase to allow for individuals to be in different design phases at the same point in time. Again, under this relaxed definition, I'm comfortable describing adaptive designs as a subset of responsive designs.
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