Mitofsky-Waksberg Sampling

Mitofsky-Waksberg sampling is a two-stage, clustered approach for selecting a random sample of telephone numbers. Developed by Warren Mitofsky and Joseph Waksberg in the 1970s, this was an innovative approach designed to improve the operational efficiency of telephone samples through reductions in the proportion of unproductive numbers dialed. Prior to the development of Mitofsky-Waksberg sampling, unrestricted random-digit dial (RDD) was used, but this method was operationally inefficient as it led interviewers to call far too many nonworking numbers. Mitofsky-Waksberg sampling (including modified versions of the basic approach) was the predominant approach used for selecting samples for RDD telephone surveys throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but it was largely supplanted by list-assisted RDD by the early 1990s.

An understanding of the various approaches used for RDD sampling ...