Must Respondent Selection Procedures for Telephone Surveys Be Invasive?

Two respondent selection procedures are compared in a combination telephone and mail survey involving a national probability sample of over 2,500 telephone households. One procedure asks two household composition questions in order to select a respondent randomly. The alternative asks no preliminary questions. Two hypotheses are proposed: (1) The alternative approach will result in fewer refusals at the respondent selection phase because no obtrusive household composition questions are asked, and (2) the integrity of the demographic profile of the resulting sample will not be compromised. Both hypotheses are accepted.