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Cost of Paradata

I'm interested in this question again. I wrote about the costs of paradata a while ago. These costs can vary quite a lot depending upon the situation. There aren't a lot of data out there about these costs. It might be good to start looking at this question.

One big question is interviewer observations. The technical systems that we use here have some limitations. Our sample management system doesn't create "keystroke files" that would allow us to determine how long call records take. But when we use our CAPI software, we can capture those data.

Such timing data will allow us to answer the question about how much time it takes to create them (a key element of their costs). But they won't allow us to answer questions about how collecting those data impacts other parts of the process. For instance, does having interviewers create these data distract them from the conversation with sampled persons sufficiently to reduce response rates? The latter question probably requires an experiment to answer.


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