(a) Relevance & Research Question:
Due to the dropping penetration rate of landline telephones and a general decline in the willingness to participate in telephone surveys, data collection using online methods – especially online access panels – are becoming more popular all over the world. Though widely adopted among marketing researchers critics still fear that the new sampling methodology leads to biased results produced by a breed of survey-savvy volunteer respondents who are solely interested in monetary incentives and therefore cannot be compared to the general population. This study seeks to give in-depth insight into the personality of online panelists by analyzing their motives for joining the pool as well as their personality traits (Big Five, materialism).
(b) Methods & Data:
In a survey among 1,729 members of an Austrian online access panel participants were asked to answer standardized scales measuring materialism (Richins 1987) and the Big Five personality traits (Rammstedt & John 2005). In addition they had to name the reasons for joining the online panel. The data was then analyzed for its influence on participation behavior in the pool during the last 13 month.
(c) Results:
The results show that money is a relevant motive but not the dominating reason for becoming an online panel member. It is also found that psychographic characteristics have rather little influence on participation behavior within the panel.
(d) Added Value:
The use of personality traits to predict participation behavior in surveys in general and online panels in particular is virtually unknown in the literature. This study is the first that examines the influence of those factors in an online panel environment.