Evaluating the effects of screening for telephone service in dual frame RDD surveys

The high costs and largely unknown error properties of cellular telephone interviews make screening for cell-only adults a potentially attractive option in dual frame RDD surveys. Screening out adults with landline telephones from the cellular sample does not affect the coverage properties of a dual frame survey, but it may affect other sources of error, especially nonresponse. In this study, data from a 2006 dual frame RDD survey conducted for the Pew Research Center, the Associated Press, and AOL are used to evaluate the effects of implementing a cell-only screener on both the bias and variance of weighted survey estimates. The effect of screening appears to be minimal so long as an adjustment for telephone service is included in the weighting method. Results of an attempt to correct for residual nonresponse due to inaccessibility are also discussed.