A Review of Reporting Standards in Academic Journals: A Research Note

Abstract

Response rates can be calculated by various means, allowing the researchers the usage of different disposition codes, which in turn can result in vastly different response rates for the same survey. One of the most comprehensive reporting conventions is the ‘Standard Definitions’ by the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), which describes specific definitions of disposition codes and various outcome rates in great detail, allowing for only a marginal variance of results. In this inquiry, we aim to document the reporting of response rates and other survey characteristics in recent publications of scientific journals. Our analyses are based on two sample of articles, which allow a comparison with earlier reviews as well as between different scientific disciplines. Our findings show, that while there is an overall increase in the reporting of response rates and other defining survey characteristics, these improvements are from universal. While the AAPOR standard might be considered an established convention within the survey research community, other disciplines of the social sciences can be considered far more heterogeneous in their reporting styles. A comparison between social sciences and public health journals reveals further a mostly similar reporting pattern, with only specific details underreported in the latter.