Gerrits M H, van den Oord E J, Voogt R
Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2001 Jul;42(5):593-602.
The last decades have shown a rapid increase in nonresponse rates. For this reason it is important to study nonresponse and think about it critically. In this article we investigated whether nonresponse affected estimates of the levels of adjustment problems in children and the correlations between these outcomes. The nonresponse was caused by parents who refused permission to interview their children at school, parents who did not return a questionnaire, teachers who did not complete the questionnaire, and parents who refused to participate in an in-depth study, with nonresponse rates of 9%, 69%, 25%, and 46% respectively. The sample consisted of 1282 children aged 4 5 years and the dependent measures were peer-rated sociometric status, self-rated wellbeing at school, and teacher-rated behaviour problems. Despite considerable nonresponse in some conditions our results showed hardly any evidence for bias. This suggested that bias cannot simply be inferred from the amount of nonresponse and that standard rules such as "nonresponse rates higher than 50% are not acceptable" lack a scientific basis. Instead, we argue that to assess nonresponse bias the specific conditions and analyses of the study will need to be considered and special measures may be required.
在过去几十年里，无应答率迅速上升。因此，研究无应答情况并进行批判性思考很重要。在本文中，我们调查了无应答是否会影响对儿童适应问题水平的估计以及这些结果之间的相关性。无应答是由以下原因导致的：拒绝允许在学校对其子女进行访谈的家长、未返还问卷的家长、未完成问卷的教师以及拒绝参与深入研究的家长，其无应答率分别为9%、69%、25%和46%。样本包括1282名4至5岁的儿童，相关测量指标包括同伴评定的社会测量地位、自我评定的学校幸福感以及教师评定的行为问题。尽管在某些情况下无应答情况相当严重，但我们的结果几乎没有显示出偏差的证据。这表明不能仅仅从无应答的数量推断出偏差，诸如“无应答率高于50%是不可接受的”之类的标准规则缺乏科学依据。相反，我们认为要评估无应答偏差，需要考虑研究的具体条件和分析方法，可能还需要采取特殊措施。
