An Attempt to Get the “Not at Homes” into the Sample Without Callbacks

Abstract This paper describes a plan for eliminating the need for callbacks. Each person in the sample is visited only once. From each person interviewed information is obtained as to whether or not he was at home on specific instances, including the instance of the interview, which permits an estimate of the proportion of time he is at home during the interviewing hours. Questionnaires are divided into e.g. 6 groups according to the estimated proportion of time persons in each group are at home, viz., 1/6, 2/6, …, 6/6 of the time. The sample estimate, for any variable under study, is produced by weighting the results for each group by the reciprocal of the estimated per cent that persons are at home. It is shown that under certain conditions this estimate is unbiased and the variance of the estimate is obtained. A numerical comparison is made between this plan and the usual method of calling back.