Challenges for Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing in Australia: Current and future perspectives

Proceedings of the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing Technical Reference Group Forum held 24 February 2006, Adelaide, South Australia

Published: 2010

The 2006 Computuer Assisted Telephone Interviewing Technical Reference Group (CATI TRG) Forum on the Challenges for Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing in Australia: Current and Future Perspectives is reported in these proceedings. The Forum was attended by 40 participants, hosted by the Population Research and Outcome Studies Unit of the South Australian Department of Health, with funding by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, Population Health Division. The Forum aims were to harmonise efforts across jurisdictions and to share participant views and expertise.

• the demise of the Electronic White Pages (EWP) and how to modify the sampling frame;
• advantages and disadvantages of Random Digit Dialling (RDD) and list-assisted RDD;
• possible responses to the anticipated future need for geographic sampling, and growth in mobile telephones as a primary means of communication;
• potential moves from household-based to person-based sampling;
• panel methods;
• ‘next generation' multi-mode and mixed mode methods, and whether data obtained from mixed modes should be combined into one data-set;
• lack of gold standards for questions and of information on the ‘best' modes to use for different purposes; and
• use of ‘incentives'.

The Forum concluded that best practice in a period of change should include monitoring changing telecommunications, lobbying for a Do-Not-Call list in Australia, work on the standardisation of response rates, and developing a replacement for the EWP sample list.

These Proceedings are made available here as the CATI TRG website is no longer maintained.

Prepared and edited by PHIDU

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