Obtaining Record Linkage Consent from Establishments: The Impact of Question Placement on Consent Rates and Bias

Abstract

Many survey organizations attempt to reduce response burden in establishment surveys by augmenting the collected interview data with external record information. However, not all responding establishments actively grant survey organizations permission to access and link their external record data. The lack of full consent has implications for the usefulness of the linked data and the accuracy of any inferences derived from them -issues which have only been scantily explored in the establishment survey literature. In this article, we test a strategy for optimizing linkage consent rates and minimizing the risk of consent bias in a web survey of establishments by experimentally manipulating the placement of the consent question in the questionnaire. We consider three approximate consent question placement locations: beginning, middle, and end. In addition to examining the role of question placement on the consent rate, we also examine the magnitude of consent bias in estimates derived from a set of commonly-linked administrative variables. In short, we find that placing the linkage consent item at the beginning of the questionnaire yields a higher consent rate than placing it at the middle or end of the questionnaire. Furthermore, we show that the magnitude of linkage consent bias -which is generally small across a range of linked administrative variables -is largest when the consent question is placed at the end of the questionnaire. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for survey practice.

The Effect of Framing and Placement on Linkage Consent

“…The results are in line with other studies showing that end-placement of the linkage consent question is suboptimal from a consent rate perspective (Sakshaug et al 2013; Sala, Knies, and Burton 2014; Sakshaug and Vicari 2018). The Web survey finding that loss-framing is more effective than gain-framing when the consent question is asked at the end of the survey replicates the results of Kreuter, Sakshaug, and Tourangeau (2016).…”

“…Similar patterns were found in a Web-only establishment survey in Germany. When asked for consent to link federal employment records, Sakshaug and Vicari (2018) reported consent rates of 61.3 percent, 52.3 percent, and 45.2 percent for those randomly assigned to receive the linkage request at the beginning, middle, or end of the survey, respectively.…”

Informed consent for paradata use in web surveys

“…Moreover, asking for web paradata consent at the beginning of the questionnaire rather than at the end seems to build trust, and therefore, results in higher consent rates (Couper & Singer, 2013; Sattelberger, 2015). This finding is consistent with previous findings on informed consent for linking survey data to administrative records (Sakshaug et al, 2013, 2019; Sakshaug & Vicari, 2017). However, transparency regarding the collection and use of web paradata in terms of asking for web paradata consent at the beginning of the questionnaire also may heighten respondents’ sense of surveillance.…”

Consent to data linkage in a large online epidemiological survey of 18–23 year old Australian women in 2012–13

“…In this study the consent question was at the end of the survey. The placement of consent has been identified as influencing response rates [26], although only one study was located which examined the consent placement in an online-administered survey [27]. In that study of German establishments, placement of the consent question at the beginning elicited higher consent rates than when it was placed at either the middle or the end of the survey.…”