Web Survey Bibliography

Title We seek them here, we seek them there. How technical innovation in mixed mode survey software is responding to the challenge of finding elusive respondents
Author Macer, T.
Source The ASC's 4th International Conference on Survey and Statistical Computing, 2003: The Impact of Technology on Survey Process
Year 2003
Access date 17.05.2004
Presentation ppt (187k)
Abstract Increasingly, market and social researchers are turning to mixed mode surveys as a means to overcome a variety of research issues and constraints, not least the increased difficulty in establishing contact with respondents. Surveys where more than one data collection mode from the established repertoire of methods (CATI, CAPI, Web, paper), are variously seen as a means to: achieve improved survey participation in the face of falling response rates globally, obtain more consistent and more accurate results , overcome differential participation rates among identifiable sub-populations, reduce respondent burden while allowing for more complex data to be collected, address concerns over the ‘representativeness’ of a single mode, particularly web-based surveys, reduce the high cost of contacting large, representative samples. Many commercially developed survey packages claim to offer this panacea for the ills of modern research by supporting mixed mode data collection in various ways. Yet most of these systems have added new modes organically, rather than being designed specifically for them. The central challenge of true multi-modal research is to combine both administered and self-completion interviewing across a range of devices and methods, each with its own inherent limitations, in ways that will minimise operational complexity and also the variability or ‘modal effect’ that is experienced between the different modes. This paper will set out the principal operational and technical issues that multimodal data collection software needs to address. It will present evidence of these issues gathered from research practitioners working with mixed mode surveys. It will offer a critique of how individual manufacturers are responding to the challenges of carrying out mixed mode research in an efficient and coherent manner from a single survey instrument, and draw attention to software-based initiatives being provided that aim to reduce the effect of modal difference. It will conclude with the author’s recommendations on a minimum set of facilities or features that any mixed mode interviewing system should contain.
Access/Direct link Homepage - conference (abstract)
Year of publication2003
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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