Web Survey Bibliography
(a) Relevance & Research Question
High drop-out rates are considered a major shortcoming of web surveys and considerably threaten data quality. However, until recently survey breakoff has received limited scholarly attention and knowledge about the reasons causing respondents to terminate surveys early is still fractional. In political science, the topic has been particularly neglected. Enhanced understanding of the complex processes leading to breakoff is needed in order to develop standard guidelines for web surveys that help in minimising drop-out rates.
(b) Methods & Data
Connected to the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) a seven-wave campaign online tracking has been conducted with about 14,000 respondents, thereof 3,000 drop-outs. This data allows for a detailed analysis of drop-outs: Given the applied quota design, personal information is available even about those respondents who answered some questions but did not finish the survey. As many questions were included in each wave, yet being asked at different questionnaire positions and being surrounded by various items, contextual effects on drop-out can be analysed.
In terms of research methods, among other things, life tables were presented to observe how breakoffs are distributed throughout the survey. Discrete-time survival models with page-varying covariates are estimated for each wave separately, including both respondent characteristics as well as questionnaire and page characteristics.
(c) Results
Our main findings can be summarised as follows:
In accordance with recent research, we find drop-out to be a function of both respondent characteristics and page characteristics. For instance, higher educated people are less likely to break off, whereas open questions tend to produce significantly higher drop-outs.
In the course of the survey, the drop-out-risk tends to decrease.
Varying the context a question is embedded in, may affect the number of drop-outs, thus breakoff in web surveys is not unchallengeable.
(d) Added Value
Our findings confirm some results of previous research dealing with breakoff in web surveys. The reasons for breakoffs thus seem to be largely independent of the survey topic. Even more essential, based on the empirical results, some prospects for reducing the number of drop outs in web surveys by questionnaire and page design are provided.
Conference Homepage (abstract) / (presentation)
Web survey bibliography - 2010 (251)
- Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk; 2010; Paolacci, G., Chandler, J., Ipeirotis, P. G.
- Making Good Use of Survey Paradata; 2010; Lynn, P., Nicolaas, G.
- Questionnaire Length, Fatigue Effects and Response Quality Revisited; 2010; Cape, P. J.
- Preventing Satisficing in Online Surveys: A “Kapcha” to Ensure Higher Quality Data...; 2010; Chandler, D., Kapelner, A.
- Game on; 2010; Ewing, T.
- Respondent Engagement: How Much Does it Matter?; 2010
- The Internet and Social Inequalities; 2010; Mannon, S.E.; Witte, J. C.
- Need to Improve Routine HIV Testing of U.S. Veterans in Care: Results of an Internet Survey; 2010; Valdiserri, R. O., Nazi, K., McInnes, D. K., Ross, D., Kinsinger, L.
- The Prevalence of Chronic Pain in United States Adults: Results of an Internet-Based Survey; 2010; Johannes, C. B., Le, T. K., Zhou, X., Johnston, J. A., Dworkin, R. H.
- Response Rates in Organizational Science, 1995–2008: A Meta-analytic Review and Guidelines for...; 2010; Anseel, F., Lievens, F., Schollaert, E., Choragwicka, B.
- Marketing Research: Methodological Foundations; 2010; Iacobucci, D., Churchill, G.A. Jr.
- Computer Assisted Interview Testing Tool (CTT) - a review of new features and how the tool has improved...; 2010; Stark, R., Gatward, R.
- Address-based Sampling Nets Success for KnowledgePanel® Recruitment and Sample Representation; 2010; DiSogra, C.
- A method of automated nonparametric content analysis for social science; 2010; Hopkins, D. J., King, G.
- Developing a web explicit research strategy theory in African universities: a cross-comparison of specific...; 2010; Kirigha, K. A., Neema-A.
- The use of paradata to monitor and manage survey data collection; 2010; Kreuter, F., Couper, M. P., Lyberg, L. E.
- Mitigating Online Survey Nonresponse Error In Aviation Research; 2010; Ison, D. C.
- Optimizing response rates in online surveys; 2010; Kaczmirek, L.
- The Decision Maker's Guide to Online Research; 2010
- Mixed-Method Approaches to Social Network Analysis; 2010; Edwards, G.
- Measuring Intent to Participate and Participation in the 2010 Census and Their Correlates and Trends...; 2010; Pasek, J., Krosnick, J. A.
- Nonresponse and Measurement Error in Mobile Phone Surveys ; 2010; Kennedy, C.
- Wordle; 2010; Feinberg, J.
- What it takes to be a top 100 website; 2010
- Total Survey Error: past, present, and future; 2010; Groves, R. M., Lyberg, L. E.
- There is an app for that! A review of smartphone apps for marketing research; 2010; Michelson, M.
- The who, what, and where of America: Understanding the American Community Survey; 2010; Gaquin, D. A.
- The weirdest people in the world?; 2010; Heine, S. J., Henrich, J., Norenzayan, A.
- The state of online research in the U.S.; 2010; Miller, J.
- The psychology or survey response. An ASA webinar; 2010; Tourangeau, R.
- The psychology of survey response, 2nd Edition; 2010; Tourangeau, R., Bradburn, N. M.
- The multidimensional integral business survey response model; 2010; Bavdaz, M.
- The impact of next and back buttons on time to complete and measurement reliability in computer-based...; 2010; Hays, R. D., Bode, R., Rothrock, N., Riley, W., Cella, D., Gershon, R.
- The Gallup Poll: Public opinion 2009; 2010; Gallup, A. M.
- Surveying cultures: Discovering shared conceptions and sentiments; 2010; Heise, D. R.
- Site-intercpet survey best practices; 2010; Henning, J.
- Sampling: design and analysis, 2nd Edition; 2010; Lohr, S. L.
- Research synthesis. AAPOR report on online panels; 2010; Brick, J. M., Baker, R., Blumberg, S. J., Couper, M. P., Courtright, M., Dennis, J. M., Dillman, D....
- Recruiting probability samples for a multi-mode research panel with Internet and mail components; 2010; Rao, K.
- Real ID. State of The Art Representative and Repeatable Online Samples. Behaviorally Profiled Respondents...; 2010; Gittelman, S. H., Trimarchi, E.
- Randomized response and indirect questioning techniques in surveys; 2010; Chaudhuri, A.
- Protecting and accessing data from the survey of earned doctorates: A workshop summary; 2010; Plewes, T. J.
- Paradata: a new data source from web-administered measures; 2010; Sowan, A. K., Jenkins, L. S.
- Overview of data collection methodology; 2010
- On-the-go and in-the-moment. Mobile research offers speed, immediacy; 2010; Pferdekamper, T.
- Mixed-mode surveys; 2010; Dillman, D. A., Messer, B. L.
- Measuring the group quarters population in the American Community Survey: Interim report; 2010; Marton, K., Voss, P. R.
- Measures of interobserver agreement and reliability; 2010; Shoukri, M. M.
- Machines that lean how to code open ended survey data; 2010; Esuli, A., Sebastiani, F.
- Libraries nationwide receiving ALA-APA Library Salary Survey Invitation; 2010; Grady, J.