Curbstoning and beyond: Confronting data fabrication in survey research

Abstract

The literature on survey data fabrication is fairly thin, given the serious threat it poses to data quality. Recent contributions have focused on detecting interviewer fabrication, with an emphasis on statistical detection methods as a way to efficiently target reinterviews. We believe this focus to be too narrow. The paper looks at the problem of fabrication in a different way, exploring new data that shows the problem goes beyond interviewer curbstoning. A surprising amount of apparent fabrication is easily detected through comparatively rudimentary methods such as analysis of duplicate data. We then examine the motivations behind survey data fabrication and explore the utility of fraud investigation frameworks in detecting survey data fabrication. We finish with a brief discussion of the importance of additional research in this area and suggest questions worth exploring further. This paper is a synthesis of presentations given by the authors at an event sponsored by the Washington Statistical Society.