Respondent Panel and Face-to-face Interview Compared the ‘cultural Changes in the Netherlands’ Survey 2000

1. The survey and the experiment Cultural Changes in the Netherlands is a longitudinal survey in which a representative sample of the Dutch population aged 16 and over is interviewed at regular intervals. The survey was carried out annually until 1998, since when it has been held every two years. The aim of the project is to construct opinion time series. The questionnaires used consist of selections of questions taken from earlier surveys, which are presented verbatim. The Social and Cultural Planning Office of the Netherlands (SCP) carried out the first survey in 1975; that survey was itself based on earlier surveys, the results of which had been stored in a databank, the Steinmetz Archive. The project is organised and funded by SCP, a Dutch government agency whose task is to describe the status of welfare in the Netherlands and to advise the government on its welfare policy. The survey samples are representative and generally comprise around 2,000 respondents. The response rate can be calculated in various. It is reasonable to assume that, at the level of individual respondents, the response rate at the end of the 1990s was approximately 37%. Respondents are given face-to-face interviews, but also have an opportunity to fill in some question blocks themselves. Since 1987, the majority of SCP surveys have included a self-completion drop-off questionnaire which is a part of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). These questionnaires are left with the respondent by the interviewer at the end of the face-to-face interview, and collected at a later date. The respondent is given a gift voucher as thanks for taking part in the survey. The collection of the questionnaires plus the gift voucher produce a high number of fully completed ISSP questionnaires: a response rate of roughly 90%. The fieldwork for the entire surve y is carried out by the NIPO market research bureau in Amsterdam. Budget cuts meant that in 1999 it was only possible to carry out the ISSP survey; this was done using the NIPO computer panel, Capi@home. NIPO has a pool of around 25,000 households each having a computer. For each survey, NIPO draws a sample of the required size from the total number of households available. As far as possible, these samples are made representative by applying a number of population distribution factors. The members of the households sampled have declared themselves willing to cooperate in surveys periodically. The …