Teaching · For Teachers

Who answered, and who the results leave out.

Enter how many people you asked and how many answered, overall and for each group. The summary shows the response rate, which groups thinned out between asked and answered, and how to report the results honestly.

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$12one-time · every device you sign in on

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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the For Teachers toolkit, $79 for 72 items.

The nonresponse review

One record per survey. Only counts are entered, never responses or names. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · For Teachers$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with: For each survey, the response rate, every group’s rate and representation, an early-late check, and reporting guidance for the groups that are missing from the answers.
Who it is for: School and district teams who run family, student or staff surveys, teacher researchers and program evaluators.
Format: Browser form. Several saved reviews; printed with the summary to attach to a report, or as a blank form; CSV of the group table; export and import a file.
Access: $12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the For Teachers toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives: The For Teachers space in Caveat Teaching.
Support: Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

Drawn for this page. When one group thins out between asked and answered, the results speak mostly for the others.

How to use it

Start a record with a survey code and the close date.
Enter invitations, invitations that could not reach anyone and completes.
Choose one way to divide people and enter invited and completed for each group.
Mark the follow-up steps and, if you can, the key item for early and late respondents.
Read the summary before you report the results.

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What the review is for

Rate and representation

A response rate tells you how many answered; representation tells you who. A survey with a fair rate can still miss most of one group. Comparing each group’s share of invitations with its share of answers shows where the results lean.

What you can say

Nonresponse bias is the difference between what respondents said and what everyone would have said. You cannot measure it directly, but you can show which groups are thin, report them separately, and compare early and late respondents, who are sometimes more like people who never answered. Personal follow-up in the family’s language is the most reliable way to raise response from a missing group.

What this review is not

It does not weight results or test significance. It describes who answered so readers can judge the results.

Sources

American Association for Public Opinion Research. Standard Definitions: Final Dispositions of Case Codes and Outcome Rates for Surveys (current edition), response rate definitions.
Groves, R. M. (2006). Nonresponse rates and nonresponse bias in household surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly, 70(5), 646 to 675.
Office of Management and Budget (2006). Standards and Guidelines for Statistical Surveys, guideline on nonresponse bias analysis when response rates are below 80%.
Dillman, D. A., Smyth, J. D., and Christian, L. M. Internet, Phone, Mail, and Mixed-Mode Surveys: The Tailored Design Method, 4th edition (2014).

The example survey is made up. The review describes who answered; it cannot show what non-respondents would have said. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.