Web Survey Bibliography
Relevance & Research Question: Contemporary empirical research is increasingly supported with information-communication technologies. Despite playing an extremely important role, online software tools receive only little attention in literature; rare examples include Macer (2002), Crafword (2002, 2006), Vehovar et. al. (2005), Berzelak (2006), Kazcmirek (2006, 2008) and Zuckerberg (2006).
Methods & Data: We used the public WebSM database of 400 online survey tools, where key characteristics were observed for each tool: pricing, code availability, languages, countries, support, website characteristics, promotion etc. The analysis enables studying trends in historical context within CASIC developments. Next, software tools were tested and evaluated according to 50 differentiating features related to questionnaire design, appearance, routing, sample management, multi-mode support, data security, paradata, data export, and reporting. A clustering of existing software was performed based on these characteristics. In addition, as results confirm various customer studies showing that lack of integration (e.g. support to early stages of questionnaire development) is the key deficiency of contemporary web software tools, an experiment was conducted. One group developed a questionnaire the usual way (drafts in a word processor, exchanged via e-mail and only the finalized version converted to the online tool), while the other group developed the same questionnaire using a prototype software which supports full integration from the earliest stage.
Results: Web software tools can be classified into three large groups. However, all three suffer from a relatively weak support for post-survey activities (editing, coding, weighting, analysis), in particular the lack of an integrated support for questionnaire development (on-line collaboration, drafting, archiving, commenting, versioning, editing). Namely, all software assumes a pre-existing questionnaire version, which was already extensively pre-communicated in some external software (e.g. e-mail). The results of the experiment reconfirm the problem: the users clearly prefer the integrated online tool.
Added Value: This is the first comprehensive study of all available web survey software on the market ever. Besides the insight into the status and trends, the results demonstrate key deficiencies of current web software (i.e. lack of integration), while the experiment performed in the study suggests a possible solution.
Conference Homepage (abstract) / (presentation)
Web survey bibliography - General Online Research Conference (GOR) 2012 (26)
- Is „chapterisation“ a viable alternative to traditional progress indicators ?; 2012; Spicer, R., Dowling, Z.
- Exploring New Pathways to Survey Recruitment; 2012; Bilgram, V., Stadler, D.Jawecki, G.
- Understanding selection bias in a worldwide, volunteer web-survey; 2012; Tijdens, K., Steinmetz, S.
- Does Mode Matter? Initial Evidence from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES); 2012; Blumenstiel, J. E., Rossmann, J.
- The Representativity of Web Surveys of the General Population compared to Traditional Modes and Mixed...; 2012; Klausch, L. T., Schouten, B., Hox, J.
- Surveytainment 2.0: Why investing 10 more minutes more in constructing your questionnaire is worth considering...; 2012; Muehle, A., Tress, F., Schmidt, S., Winkler, T.
- Market research online community (MROC) versus focus group; 2012; Zuber, M.
- Data quality in MAWI and CAWI; 2012; Mavletova, A. M., Blasius, J.
- Time use data collection using Smartphones: Results of a pilot study among experienced and inexperienced...; 2012; Scherpenzeel, A., Sonck, N., Fernee, H., Morren, Me.
- Scrutinizing Dynamics – Rolling panel waves in theory and practice; 2012; Faas, T., Blumenberg, J. N.
- Little experience with technology as a cause of nonresponse in online surveys; 2012; Struminskaya, B., Schaurer, I., Kaczmirek, L., Bandilla, W.
- Automatic Forwarding on Web Surveys – Some Outlines and Remarks; 2012; Selkaelae, A.
- Thinking, Planning & Operationalizing Empirical Mixed Methods Research Design; 2012; Ruhi, U.
- Continuous large-scale volunteer web-surveys: The experience of Lohnspiegel and WageIndicator; 2012; Oez, F.
- Is Pretesting Established Among Online Survey Tool Users?; 2012
- An Evaluation of Two Non-Reactive Web Questionnaire Pretesting Methods; 2012; Lenzner, T.
- Recommendations for implementing online surveys and simple experiments in social and behavioural research...; 2012; Hewson, C. M.
- High potential for mobile Web surveys: Findings from a survey representative for German Internet users...; 2012; Funke, F., Wachenfeld, A.
- A taxonomy of paradata for web surveys and computer assisted self interviewing (Casi); 2012; Callegaro, M.
- Can Social Media Research replace traditional research methods?; 2012; Faber, T., Einhorn, M., Hofmann, O., Loeffler, M.
- Bad Boy Matrix Question – Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?; 2012; Tress, F.
- Matrix vs. Single Question Formats in Web Surveys: Results from a large scale experiment; 2012; Klausch, L. T., de Leeuw, E. D., Hox, J., de Jongh, A., Roberts , A.
- Effects of Static versus Dynamic Formatting Instructions for Open-Ended Numerical Questions in Web Surveys...; 2012; Kunz, T., Fuchs, M.
- FamilyVote – Conducting online surveys with children and families; 2012; Geissler, H., Peeters, H.
- The influence of social desirability on data quality in face-to-face and web surveys; 2012; Keusch, F.
- Reducing the Threat of Sensitive Questions in Online Surveys; 2012; Couper, M. P.