| Sumario: | The article focuses on the one of the problems in survey research, i.e., the failure in obtaining responses from all the members of a selected sample. As maintained by the author, selected characteristics of refusers and their reasons for refusing have been noted in several studies, and it is possible to use this information in an attempt to correct possible opinion differences between cooperators and refusers, as well as to train interviewers to cope with the less cooperative respondents in future surveys. Most surveys instruct interviewers to search for and interview the respondent in his home. The survey organization finds that the dwelling is a convenient unit of sampling, and assumes that a prospective respondent will more likely be at leisure in his home than elsewhere. There exists, however, another facet to non-response that has been relatively neglected in methodological research. This kind of nonresponse, termed "inaccessibility," is the result of a failure of the interviewer to reach the respondent and propose the interview. The contribution of inaccessibility to total nonresponse may be considerable.
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