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Nonresponse rates in household surveys in the Netherlands are high. As low response rates are generally assumed to increase nonresponse bias, doubts have arisen concerning the value of survey research. The costs of fieldwork have substantially increased in recent years and will increase even more to compensate for the unfavorable response trends. This article describes a survey in which high response rates were attained and which measures were taken to achieve this. It also studies the differences between respondents who are hard to reach and those who are reluctant to participate in a survey. Additional data from a follow-up survey among refusers cast doubt on the assumption that reluctant respondents are similar to refusers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on two individual validation studies employing face-to-face interviews and a mail survey, this article investigates factors influencing the probability that respondents truthfully admit to having been convicted of a criminal offense. Overall, 63 percent of the 495 respondents stuck to the truth in the survey settings. The mail survey elicited significantly more truthful responses (67 percent) than the face-to-face survey (58 percent). Female, older, and better-educated respondents confessed their delinquent behavior less often than male, younger, and less-educated ones. Whereas the need for social approval did not show a significant effect on the probability of an honest answer when controlling for other variables, trait desirability did. Regarding the face-to-face survey, the more interviews an interviewer had successfully completed in the ongoing study, the higher the response quality of the interviewees. In the mail mode, a strong negative effect of time to response could be observed: the longer respondents waited before they sent back the questionnaire, the lower the validity of their answers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]