Now, later, or never? Using response-time patterns to predict panel attrition

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics.

			Overall (n = 5340)		Participant (n = 4429)		Attrited (n = 911)
	Min.	Max.	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Attrition until wave 28	0	1	0.17	0.38	0.00	0.00	1.00	0.00
Response time habit	1	10	6.51	3.08	6.91	3.02	4.56	2.58
Response time	0	1	0.26	0.30	0.23	0.29	0.40	0.31
Available time
Full-time work	0	1	0.47	0.46	0.46	0.46	0.48	0.46
Children	0	1	0.64	0.32	0.67	0.30	0.48	0.38
Partner	0	1	0.78	0.38	0.79	0.37	0.75	0.40
Survey motivation: Evaluation
Important	1	5	3.43	0.64	3.46	0.63	3.29	0.68
Diverse	1	5	3.73	0.57	3.76	0.56	3.59	0.56
Interesting	1	5	3.67	0.59	3.71	0.58	3.47	0.60
Long	1	5	2.34	0.66	2.30	0.64	2.57	0.70
Difficult	1	5	1.95	0.57	1.92	0.56	2.10	0.58
Too Personal	1	5	2.25	0.73	2.21	0.72	2.40	0.74
Control
Low Education	0	1	0.19	0.39	0.19	0.39	0.21	0.41
Medium education	0	1	0.35	0.48	0.34	0.48	0.38	0.49
High Education	0	1	0.46	0.50	0.47	0.50	0.41	0.49
Participations	2	28	19.51	7.88	20.91	7.55	12.7	5.53
Mode = offline	0	1	0.34	0.47	0.33	0.47	0.38	0.49

n: Number of respondents, Min.: Minimum, Max.: Maximum, SD: Standard Deviation

Table 2. Logistic regression on attrition until the 28th panel wave.

	Model 1 (AME)	Model 2 (AME)	Model 3 (AME)
Response time	0.064** (0.02)		0.087*** (0.02)
Response time habit	−0.031*** (0.00)		−0.013*** (0.00)
Available time
Full time work		0.009 (0.01)	0.001 (0.01)
Children		−0.167*** (0.01)	−0.145*** (0.01)
Partner		−0.029* (0.01)	−0.023* (0.01)
Survey motivation
Evaluation: important		−0.017 (0.01)	−0.016 (0.01)
Evaluation: diverse		0.020 (0.02)	0.016 (0.01)
Evaluation: interesting		−0.043** (0.02)	−0.035* (0.02)
Evaluation: long		0.001 (0.01)	−0.006 (0.01)
Evaluation: difficult		0.069*** (0.01)	0.060*** (0.01)
Evaluation: private		−0.004 (0.01)	−0.002 (0.01)
Control
Participations		−0.016*** (0.00)	−0.015*** (0.00)
Medium education		−0.012 (0.01)	−0.018 (0.01)
High education		−0.030 (0.01)	−0.041** (0.01)
Mode = Offline		0.004 (0.01)	−0.023* (0.01)
Pseudo R^2	0.10	0.25	0.29
AIC	4416.8	3663.9	3497.9
n	5340	5340	5340

AME: Average Marginal Effects, *: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001, Standard errors in parantheses, AIC: Akaike Information Criterium, n: Number of respondents

Table 3. Confusion matrixes: percentages of truly and falsely predicted attrition and stay.

Threshold	True Positive	False Positive	True Negative	False Negative	Total	Product of TP and TP+TN
Model 1
0.05	17	0	0	83	100	289
0.10	14	3	40	43	100	756
0.15	13	4	47	36	100	780
0.20	11	6	56	27	100	737
0.25	9	8	63	20	100	648
Model 2
0.05	17	0	34	49	100	867
0.10	15	2	53	30	100	1020
0.15	14	3	60	23	100	1036
0.20	12	5	66	17	100	936
0.25	10	7	70	12	100	800
Model 3
0.05	16	1	38	45	100	864
0.10	15	2	53	30	100	1020
0.15	14	3	62	21	100	1064
0.20	13	4	67	15	100	1040
0.25	12	5	71	12	100	996

Comparison of true and false predictions of attrition (positive) and stay (negative). We estimated each model with five thresholds and show the percentages within each estimation. The product of TP and TP+TF is an indicator of the performance of each threshold which sets the two aims of maximizing the correct predictions of attrition and the correct predictions in general into relationship. TP= True Positive, TN= True Negative

Figure 1. Estimation of the optimal pattern length.