Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2017: technical annex

4. Response rates

The Scottish Social Attitudes survey involves a face-to-face interview with respondents and a self-completion section (completed using Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing). The numbers completing each stage in 2017 are shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1: 2017 Scottish Social Attitudes survey response

Notes to table

1 This includes empty / derelict addresses, holiday homes, businesses and institutions, and addresses that had been demolished.

2 ‘Unknown eligibility’ includes cases where the address could not be located, where it could not be determined if an address was residential and where it could not be determined if an address was occupied or not.

3 Refusals include: refusals prior to selection of an individual; refusals to the office; refusal by the selected person; ‘proxy’ refusals made by someone on behalf of the respondent; and broken appointments after which a respondent could not be re-contacted.

4 Non-contacts comprise households where no one was contacted after at least 6 calls and those where the selected person could not be contacted.

5 ‘Other non-response’ includes people who were ill at home or in hospital during the survey period, people who were unable to participate due to physical or mental health issues or where a language barrier made recruitment too difficult (despite translation and interpreting services being offered).

Table 2 below shows the achieved sample size for the full SSA sample (all respondents) for all previous years.

Table 2: Scottish Social Attitudes survey sample size by year