RICS-IVR Surveying:
When it is “Fit for Purpose?”

As described by Levine, Krotki, and Lavrakas in a 2019 Public Opinion Quarterly article, Redirected-Inbound Call Sampling (RICS) is a new and highly cost-effective survey research method that is being used in the USA and that appears to be quite useful for many research purposes. RICS generates a very heterogenous nonprobability sample of persons in the geographic area being surveyed, whereby calls being made in the USA across the 24-hour day via cell phones and landlines that do not reach the party for whom they were intended, are transferred to an invitation to participate in a survey. Most often recruitment and data collection are done via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, but either or both could be done via a live recruiter-interviewer.

Discussion will be provided about the strengths and limitations of RICS-IVR surveying using a Total Survey Error perspective. Many findings from past RICS-IVR surveys, including those conducted for R&D purposes, will be shared. Of note, a RICS-IVR National Coronavirus Survey conducted in March 2020 was one of the first surveys (possibly the first) to report the high polarization between Republicans and Democrats in the USA regarding self-reported beliefs about and attitudes towards the COVID pandemic.