Analysis of Hard Refusals to Continue Interviews in Telephone Surveys on Political Topics

Abstract

Abstract

The need for analyzing interrupted interviews is driven by two reasons: (1) the importance of monitoring possible systematic biases in samples, and (2) the fact that such interviews most clearly reveal problems inherent to the survey process in general, problems that are usually overcome through the joint efforts of interviewers and respondents. The focus on “hard refusals” is justified by the fact that this status is assigned when a respondent most categorically expresses unwillingness to continue, meaning that communicative problems are assumed to be the most acute in these cases. The study was conducted in two stages: (1) a telephone survey (CATI) conducted by “Chronicles” from the 5th to the 13th of February 2025 using a random stratified sample (N = 1600 successful interviews, 746 interrupted interviews, of which 160 received the “hard refusal” status); (2) content analysis and qualitative analysis of audio recordings of all of the interrupted interviews (N = 160) that ended with a categorical refusal to continue the dialogue (final status “hard refusal”) on any question after the introduction. In all analyzed interviews respondents initially agreed to participate (consent obtained during the introduction), but lost this willingness during the interview for various reasons. Most often hard refusals arise at the beginning of the questionnaire, especially on socio-demographic questions, which a significant portion of respondents perceive negatively as a request for their personal data. Contrary to expectations, questions about military action do not lead in the number of refusals. The categorical unwillingness to continue interviews in telephone surveys on political topics is a product of three groups of difficulties that arise during the survey communication or preceding it. In order of prevalence, these are: (1) unwillingness or reluctance to discuss political issues (43%), (2) distrust towards the researchers (29%), and (3) methodological features of the questionnaire and the interview process (length of the questionnaire, question wording, interviewer behavior) — together accounting for 14%. In 44% of all cases hard refusals were preceded by communication issues between the interviewer and respondent on previous questions in the questionnaire.