Dear colleagues, Annelies Blom, Oliver Lipps and me are organizing a session on "Using Paradata to Improve Survey Data Quality" at the next ESRA conference and would like to invite you to submit a proposal. We believe that your research might well fit within the scope of our session. Please find the complete session outline below. The call for papers will remain open until 13 January 2013. During this period, we welcome you to submit a proposal for a paper online on the ESRA website. You will find our session in the section "paradata and fieldwork". You can find more information about the conference on http://www.europeansurveyresearch.org/ Please feel free to contact us in case you have any questions. We look forward to your proposal and hope to see you in Ljubljana. Kind regards, Annelies Blom Oliver Lipps Volker Stocké Session Description: "Paradata" are measures of the survey data collection process, such as data describing interviewer or respondent behaviour or data available from the sampling frame, such as administrative records. Examples of paradata are call-record data in CATI surveys, keystroke information from CAI, timestamp files, observations of interviewer behaviour or respondents' response latencies. These data can be used to enrich questionnaire responses or to provide information about the survey (non-)participation process. In many cases paradata are available at little additional cost. However, there is a lack of theoretically guided reasoning about how to use available paradata indicators to assess and improve the quality of survey data. Areas which might benefit from the effective use of paradata are: - Paradata in fieldwork monitoring and nonresponse research: Survey practitioners can for example monitor fieldwork progress and interviewer performance (Japec 2005, Laflamme et al. 2008). They are also indispensable in responsive designs as real-time information about fieldwork and survey outcomes which affect costs and errors (Groves and Heeringa 2006). In methodological research into interviewer (Lipps 2008, Blom et al. 2011) or fieldwork (Lipps 2009) effects, consistent predictors of nonresponse and nonresponse bias (Blom et al. 2010), the jury is still out on the added value of paradata. - Paradata to understand respondent behavior: Paradata might aid assessing of the quality of survey responses, e.g. by means of response latencies (Callegaro et al. 2009, Stocké 2004) or back-tracking (Stieger and Reips 2010). Research has used paradata to identify uncertainty in the answers given by respondents, e.g., if respondents frequently alter their answers, need a lot of time, or move the cursor over several answer options. Papers in this session consider all aspects of measuring, preparing and analyzing paradata for data quality improvement in longitudinal as well as cross sectional surveys. Prof. Dr. Volker Stocké Professur für Methoden der Empirischen Sozialforschung Universität Kassel Fachbereich 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften Nora-Platiel-Str. 5, Raum 2122 34109 Kassel E-Mail: volker.stocke(at)uni-kassel.de Phone: +49-561 804-3127 Fax: +49-561 804-3464 Homepage: http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb05/fachgruppen/soziologie/methoden-der-empirische... Privat: Terrasse 17 34117 Kassel Phone: +49-561-40700024 Gartenfeldstr. 35 68169 Mannheim Mobile: +49(0)176-61030014