Time of day and telephone interviews in Rural‐Urban Australia

Private household telephone ownership in Australian capital cities ranges between 91.1 per cent (Canberra) and 81.9 per cent (Brisbane). Consequently, telephone ownership need not be viewed as a major factor distinguishing households. As the characteristics of households without telephones are also known, it is possible to supplement telephone interviews with face to face interviews and thereby ensure that such a sampling frame represents the population. Such techniques, coupled with the ease and relative inexpense of telephone interviews, may promote the use of the medium. Using a letter to forewarn potential respondents and a three call‐back strategy (twice during working hours, once at night), a response rate of 77.4 per cent was achieved; 8.7 per cent of respondents could not be contacted and the balance refused. Reasons for refusals related almost exclusively to the subject matter of the interview — bushfire hazard. The first day time calls yielded 166 interviews out of 378 calls and the second 67 out of 197 calls. No particular time of day or day of week resulted in significantly more interviews; however, 55.4 per cent of respondents were female. Night calls yielded the highest response rates, with 86 interviews from 127 calls, and 63.9 per cent of respondents were male.