Web Survey Bibliography
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) conducted a survey to measure the time and money that individuals spend on pre-filing and filing activities in response to the requirements of the U.S. federal tax system. The sampling frame was taxpayers who filed a 2007 income tax return in 2008.
The data collection protocol depended on whether the sampled taxpayer could be matched to a telephone number. Telephone numbers were found for approximately 76 percent of the sampled taxpayers and these were classified as ‘telephone matches’, the remainder are ‘nonmatches.’ Both groups were sent an initial mailing providing a detailed description of the purpose of the survey along with a letter from an IRS executive emphasizing the importance of the study and ensuring that the information collected would not be used for enforcement purposes. It also included a one-dollar bill as “an attention getter” and indicated that respondents would receive $25 if they completed the survey.
In the initial mailing, the telephone matches were informed they could wait for a call from the survey administrator or complete the survey on-line by going to a specified URL. The “non-matches” group members were sent a letter that provided the web address (URL) and were told a mail questionnaire was being sent.
The overall response rate was 47.7 percent. Of the three-fourths that were telephone matches (76.2 percent), the response rate for the matched cases was 51.6 percent; the response rate for the nonmatches (23.8 percent) was 35.2 percent. One interesting finding is that a surprisingly high percentage responded by the web. Overall, 28 percent of all the responses were completed on-line, which is higher than in other data collection efforts that have been reported in the literature.
This paper explores characteristics of respondents and non-respondents and highlights those who responded on-line.
Conference Homepage (abstract)
Web survey bibliography (109)
- Telephone versus Online Survey Modes for Election Studies: Comparing Canadian Public Opinion and Vote...; 2017; Breton, C.; Cutler, F.; Lachance, S.; Mierke-Zatwarnicki, A.
- Comparing acquiescent and extreme response styles in face-to-face and web surveys; 2017; Liu, M.; Conrad, F. G.; Lee, S.
- The Failure of the Polls: Lessons Learned from the 2015 UK Polling Disaster; 2017; Sturgis, P.
- Incorporating eye tracking into cognitive interviewing to pretest survey questions; 2016; Neuert, C.; Lenzner, T.
- Are interviews costing £0.08 a waste of money? Reviewing Google Surveys for Wisdom of the Crowd...; 2016; Roughton, G.; MacKay, I.
- The Effects of a Delayed Incentive on Response Rates, Response Mode, Data Quality, and Sample Bias in...; 2016; McGonagle, K., Freedman, V. A.
- Privacy Concerns in Responses to Sensitive Questions. A Survey Experiment on the Influence of Numeric...; 2016; Bader, F., Bauer, J., Kroher, M., Riordan, P.
- Does survey mode matter for studying electoral behaviour? Evidence from the 2009 German Longitudinal...; 2016; Bytzek, E.; Bieber, I. E.
- Forecasting proportional representation elections from non-representative expectation surveys; 2016; Graefe, A.
- Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk; 2016; Berinsky, A.; Huber, G. A.; Lenz, G. S.
- Report of the Inquiry into the 2015 British general election opinion polls; 2016; Sturgis, P., Baker, N., Callegaro, M., Fisher, St., Green, J., Jennings, W., Kuha, J., Lauderdale, B...
- Sample Representation and Substantive Outcomes Using Web With and Without Incentives Compared to Telephone...; 2016; Lipps, O.; Pekari, N.
- Evaluating a New Proposal for Detecting Data Falsification in Surveys; 2016; Simmons, K.; Mercer, A. W.; Schwarzer, S.; Courtney, K.
- Identifying Pertinent Variables for Nonresponse Follow-Up Surveys. Lessons Learned from 4 Cases in Switzerland...; 2016; Vandenplas, C.; Joye, D.; Staehli, M. E.; Pollien, A.
- Methods can matter: Where Web surveys produce different results than phone interviews; 2016; Keeter, S.
- HUFFPOLLSTER: Why Reaching Latinos Is A Challenge For Pollsters; 2016; Jackson, N. M.; Edwards-Levy, A.; Velencia, J.
- Moderators of Candidate Name-Order Effects in Elections: An Experiment; 2016; Kim, Nu.; Krosnick, J. A.; Casasanto, D.
- Measuring Generalized Trust: An Examination of Question Wording and the Number of Scale Points; 2016; Lundmark, S.; Giljam, M.; Dahlberg, S.
- Online and Social Media Data As an Imperfect Continuous Panel Survey; 2016; Diaz, F.; Garmon, F.; Hofman, J. K.; Kiciman, E.; Rothschild, D.
- Translating Answers to Open-ended Survey Questions in Cross-cultural Research: A Case Study on the Interplay...; 2015; Behr, D.
- Using Video to Reinvigorate the Open Question; 2015; Cape, P.
- On Bias Adjustments for Web Surveys; 2015; Fan, L.; Lou, W.; Landsman, V.
- Measuring Political Knowledge in Web-Based Surveys: An Experimental Validation of Visual Versus Verbal...; 2015; Munzert, S.; Selb, P.
- Mode System Effects in an Online Panel Study: Comparing a Probability-based Online Panel with two Face...; 2015; Struminskaya, B.; De Leeuw, E. D.; Kaczmirek, L.
- Data collection mode effect on feeling thermometer questions: A comparison of face-to-face and Web surveys...; 2015; Liu, M., Wang, Yi.
- Do Attempts to Improve Respondent Attention Increase Social Desirability Bias?; 2015; Clifford, S.; Jerit, J.
- HUFFPOLLSTER: Pollsters Debate If Modern Surveys Can Be Trusted; 2015; Blumenthal, M.; Edwards-Levy, A.; Velencia, J.
- Can a non-probabilistic online panel achieve question quality similar to that of the European Social...; 2015; Revilla, M.; Saris, W. E.; Loewe, G.; Ochoa, C.
- Data Collection Mode Effects On Political Knowledge; 2014; Liu, M., Wang, Y.
- Self-reported cheating in web surveys on political knowledge; 2014; Jensen, C., Thomsen, J. P. F.
- The Power of Partisanship in Brazil: Evidence from Survey Experiments; 2014; Samuels, D., Zucco, C.
- Online Polls and Registration-Based Sampling: A New Method for Pre-Election Polling; 2014; Barber, M. J., Mann, C. B., Monson, J. Q., Patterson, K. D.
- Does Survey Mode Still Matter? Findings from a 2010 Multi-Mode Comparison; 2014; Ansolabehere, S., Schaffner, B. F.
- Measuring Political Participation—Testing Social Desirability Bias in a Web-Survey Experiment; 2014; Persson, M., Solevid, M.
- What Does the Satisfaction with Democracy Measure Mean to Respondents in Different Countries? How Cross...; 2014; Behr, D., Braun, M.
- Professional respondents in nonprobability online panels; 2014; Hillygus, D. S., Jackson, N. M., Young, M.
- Online panels and validity; 2014; Groenlund, K., Strandberg, K.
- Two Are Better Than One: The Use of a Mixed-Mode Data Collection to Improve the Electoral Forecast; 2014; de Rada, V. D., Pasadas del Amo, S.
- The Short-term Campaign Panel of the German Longitudinal Election Study 2009. Design, Implementation...; 2013; Steinbrecher, M., Rossmann, J.
- Relative Mode Effects on Data Quality in Mixed-Mode Surveys by an Instrumental Variable; 2013; Vannieuwenhuyze, J. T. A., Revilla, M.
- Web Versus Outbound: A Mode Face-Off Following the Presidential Debate; 2013; Marlar, J.
- Propensity Score Weighting – Can Personality Adjust for Selectivity?; 2013; Glantz, A., Greszki, R.
- Especially for You: Motivating Respondents in an Internet Panel by Offering Tailored Questions; 2012; Oudejans, M.
- Presidential Elections in Iceland 2012 – Did online panel surveys give false hope to new candidates...; 2012; Jonsdottir, G. A., Dofradottir, A. G., Bjornsdottir, A. E.
- Effects of Technical Difficulties on Item Nonresponse and Response Favorability in a Mixed-Mode Survey...; 2012; Gibson, J. L.
- Where is Neutral? Using Negativity Biases to Interpret Thermometer Scores; 2012; Soroka, S., Albaugh, Q.
- I Got a Feeling: Comparison of Feeling Thermometers with Verbally Labeled Scales in Attitude Measurement...; 2012; Thomas, R. K., Bremer, J.
- Scrutinizing Dynamics – Rolling panel waves in theory and practice; 2012; Faas, T., Blumenberg, J. N.
- Toward wiser public judgment; 2011; Yankelovich, D., Friedman, W.
- Mass informed consent: Evidence on upgrading democracy with polls and new media; 2011; Simon, A. F.