What is the difference between response rate and
participation rate?  Which is better?

Response:

These terms are tossed about rather freely by the research industry, so you are certainly not alone in your confusion.  There are numerous ways to calculate response rates.  In fact, in the text Standard Definitions put out by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, there are no less than six different methods of calculating response rates.  Throughout the industry, you will often see ‘response rate’ left undefined.  Neither model is ‘better.’ 

For certain situations, HealthStream Research uses the CMS response rate formula, as their definition is clear and unambiguous.  There are many situations, however, where participation rate is the most appropriate model.

• Response Rate:  CMS calculates response rate in the following way:  take the number of completed surveys and divide it by the total number of surveys fielded (minus any ineligible surveys).  When calculating response rates, CMS further states that contact attempts to bad phone numbers and non-response after maximum attempts are to be included in the calculation.  With a ‘response rate’ approach, every single time a patient provides incorrect contact information, the response rate will be reduced.  Also, since non-responses are used in the final CMS calculation, the response rate will drop every single time a patient is not at home when the phone rings.  For assessing project costs, establishing sample sizes, and comparing results from multiple vendors, the response rate model is appropriate.  For example, a phone call to an incorrect number still takes time, so response rates would be used when calculating labor costs for the interviewing process.

• Participation Rate:   This is calculated by taking the total number of completed surveys and dividing it by the number of eligible respondents successfully contacted.  Participation rates show how successful a research vendor is at getting people to agree to a survey once they answer the phone. Refusals, incomplete surveys, and hang-ups are included in the calculation; however, incorrect phone numbers and unanswered phones have no bearing on the quality of the research or on the research vendor, so these are not factored into the formula.  It takes a trained, engaged, articulate, and friendly interviewer to successfully get someone on the other end of the phone to complete a survey.  Participation rates are particularly useful for measuring the quality of the interviewing process, as all non-quality-related variables (such as contact attempts to wrong phone numbers, calls not answered at all) are excluded from the calculation.    

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