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Statistics vocabulary · Survey and Study Design

Response rate

Meaning in statistics, with examples

nounCore term

In statistics, response rate means: The share of people invited to take part in a survey who actually complete it, usually given as a percentage.

In Turkish: yanıt oranı, cevaplanma oranı, geri dönüş oranı

How it is used

Always reported in survey research, because a low response rate raises concerns about nonresponse bias. Researchers try to increase it with reminders, short questionnaires and incentives. Online surveys often have much lower response rates than face-to-face ones.

Example sentences

  1. Of the 2,000 employees invited, 640 responded, giving a response rate of 32%.

  2. Two email reminders raised the response rate from 18% to 27%.

Common collocations

  • low response rate
  • improve the response rate
  • overall response rate
  • a response rate of 40%
  • surveyA method of collecting information by asking a set of questions to a group of people, usually a sample, in person, by phone, on paper or online.
  • nonresponse biasBias that arises when the people who do not take part in a survey differ in important ways from those who do, so the results misrepresent the population.
  • questionnaireThe printed or online form containing the set of questions that respondents answer in a survey.
  • sample sizeThe number of observations or participants included in a study, usually written as n (or N for the total).

More terms: Survey and Study Design

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