Statistics Canada’s Experiences in Using Paradata to Manage Responsive Collection Design for Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview Household Surveys

Paradata research has focused on identifying opportunities for strategic improvement in data collection that could be operationally viable and lead to enhancements in quality or cost efficiency. To that end, Statistics Canada has developed and implemented a responsive collection design (RCD) strategy for computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) household surveys to maximize quality and efficiency and to potentially reduce costs. RCD is an adaptive approach to survey data collection that uses information available prior to and during data collection to adjust the collection strategy for the remaining in-progress cases. In practice, the survey managers monitor and analyze collection progress against a predetermined set of indicators for two purposes: to identify critical data-collection milestones that require significant changes to the collection approach and to adjust collection strategies to make the most efficient use of remaining available resources. In the RCD context, numerous considerations come into play when determining which aspects of data collection to adjust and how to adjust them. Paradata sources play a key role in the planning, development and implementation of active management for RCD surveys. Since 2009, Statistics Canada has conducted several RCD surveys. This paper describes Statistics Canada’s experiences in implementing and monitoring this type of surveys.