September 2015
From the March 2015 Experimental RDD Cell Phone Survey
Noriko Onodera / Kyoko Tsukamoto
NHK has been conducting public opinion surveys on attitudes towards politics and current affaires with telephone survey (RDD tracking) method utilizing landline telephone numbers. However, those who do not own landline phones and use only cell phones have increased in recent years, especially among young people. So far, this trend is yet to display a significant impact on the results of surveys, but it is expected that the influence will become more noticeable before too long, and the utilization of cell phone surveys is being called for. In response to this, NHK conducted an experimental RDD cell phone survey in March 2015. Based on the findings from the experimental survey, the authors summarize problems and challenged faced with the implementation of RDD cell phone surveys.
The experimental survey showed the feasibility of cell phone surveys. However, it is also revealed there are many issues to solve before the implementation such as 1) low response rate and bias in respondents, 2) establishment of the questionnaire method that can be answered by those away from home as well, 3) handling of recipients in various situations such as driving a car, 4) incapability of surveys by region due to the lack of area codes, and 5) need for the consideration of combined use of telephone survey for those who do not own cell phones. Thus, there are many challenges, but it is an urgent task for us to further explore the feasibility of the RDD cell phone survey before the bias in respondents in the conventional RDD telephone survey becomes a real problem.