NCRN Meeting Spring 2016: The ATUS and SIPP-EHC: Recent Developments

Abstract

One of the main objectives of the NCRN award to the University of Nebraska node is to investigate data quality associated with timeline interviewing as conducted with the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) time diary and the Survey of Income and Program Participation event history calendar (SIPP-EHC). Specifically, our efforts are focused on the relationships between interviewing dynamics as extracted from analyses of paradata with measures of data quality. With the ATUS, our recent efforts have revealed that respondents differ in how they handle difficulty with remembering activities, with some overcoming these difficulties and others succumbing to them. With the SIPP-EHC, we are still in the initial stages of extracting variables from the paradata that are associated with interviewing dynamics. Our work has also involved the development of a CATI time diary in which we are able to analyze audio streams to capture interviewing dynamics. I will conclude this talk by discussing challenges that have yet to be overcome with our work, and our vision of moving forward with the eventual development of self-administered timeline instruments that will be respondent-friendly due to the assistance of intelligent-agent driven virtual interviewers.