Birthday method

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The birthday method is used in survey research used in telephone surveys a random ensure selection of respondents. A random selection ( sample ) of the telephone numbers does not initially guarantee a selection of respondents that would lead to a representative result, because many households have several people and some people answer the phone more often than others. In order to introduce a random element into the selection of the respondent, the interviewers are instructed to ask in the case of multi-person households: "May I please speak to the person in your household who was last born?"

Disadvantages of the birthday method are:

  • Many interlocutors perceive the question as impudent and break off the conversation. This can be countered by a declaration ("To ensure that the respondents are selected purely at random, I would like to speak to the person in your household who was last born.").
  • People who enjoy taking surveys simply claim that their last birthday was when they weren't. The selection of respondents is thus distorted in favor of people who are particularly willing to provide information.
  • In the case of periodically recurring studies, the dates of birth of the selected persons are not distributed equally.

literature

  • Siegfried Schumann: Representative survey . Oldenbourg, Munich, Vienna 2007, p. 102.
  • Marcus Maurer: Selection of respondents in telephone surveys. How reliable is the birthday method? In: Volker Gehrau, Benjamin Fretwurst, Birgit Krause, Gregor Daschmann (eds.): Selection process in communication studies . Herbert von Halem Verlag, Cologne 2005, pp. 203–222.