Web Survey Bibliography
Relevance & Research Question:
Compared to other survey modes, web-surveys are more easily conducted worldwide. Due to the absence of proper sampling frames, most of these surveys will be volunteer surveys, either inviting respondents from an Internet panel or inviting web-visitors to complete a survey. For the latter ones, there is a three-step selection process, namely through the access to Internet, the interest in the website's topic and the decision to take up the web-survey. While most studies so far analysed selection bias for one or a few countries, this paper firstly explores the nature of selection bias for 28 countries and secondly analyses in how far cross-national differences in the observed selection bias can be attributed to explanations related to Internet access and social and cultural indices.
Methods & Data:
The paper analyses data of the worldwide, continuous, volunteer, multilingual, cross-country comparable WageIndicator web-survey on work and wages. Using the 2010 web-survey data, for the 28 countries of interest, simple weights have been computed for six categories (gender * 3 age groups) using labour force projection data from the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Country-level explanatory variables were taken from Internet Access Tables and from the Indices of Social Development (ISD-database). Besides the usual description of selection biases, multi-level analysis has been applied in order to account for differences within and between countries in an appropriate way.
Results:
Not surprisingly, in almost all countries, the underrepresentation in the survey increases with age. Moreover, in all age groups it is higher for women than for men. Across countries, the ISD “intergroup_cohesion” index correlates negatively with the underrepresentation of women aged 40+ (-0.62) and 30-39 (-.58). The “civic_activism” index only correlates negatively with the underrepresentation of women aged 40+ (-0.44). Surprisingly, the “gender_equality” index does not correlate with women's underrepresentation.
Added value:
Most studies about selection bias have focused on one or a few countries, exploring within-country differences. Thanks to a large number of observations in a large number of countries, this paper adds to the body of knowledge by introducing country-level explanations for differences in response to volunteer web-surveys.
Conference Homepage (abstract) / (full text)
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.