Web Survey Bibliography
It is well-documented that there exists a pool of frequent survey takers who participate in many different online nonprobability panels in order to earn cash or other incentives--so-called ‘professional’ respondents. Despite widespread concern about the impact of these professional respondents on data quality, there is not a clear understanding of how they might differ from other respondents. This chapter reviews the previous research and expectations regarding professional respondents and then examines how frequent survey taking and multiple panel participation affects data quality in the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. In contrast to common assumptions, we do not find overwhelming and consistent evidence that frequent survey takers are more likely to satisfice. On the contrary, frequent survey takers spent more time completing the questionnaire, were less likely to attrite, were less likely to straightline, and reported putting more effort into answering the survey. While panel memberships and number of surveys completed were related to skipping questions, answering “don't know,” or giving junk responses to open-ended questions, these relationships did not hold once we account for levels of political knowledge. However, our analysis finds that higher levels of participation in surveys and online panels are associated with lower levels of political knowledge, interest, engagement, and ideological extremism. These findings suggest there could be contrasting motivations for those volunteering to participate in nonprobability panel surveys, with professional respondents taking part for the incentives and nonprofessional respondents taking part based on interest in the survey topic. As such, eliminating professional respondents from survey estimates, as some have recommended, would actually result in a more biased estimate of political outcomes.
Web survey bibliography - In M. Callegaro, R. Baker, J. Bethlehem, A. S. Göritz, J. A. Krosnick and P. J. Lavrakas (eds.): Online Panel Research: A Data Quality Perspective. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK (15)
- Validating respondents' identity in online samples; 2014; Baker, R., Miller, C., Kachhi-Jiwani, D., Lange, K., Wilding-Brown, L., Tucker, J.
- The relationship between nonresponse strategies and measurement error; 2014; Malhotra, N., Miller, J. M., Wedeking, J.
- Nonresponse and measurement error in an online panel; 2014; Roberts, C., Allum, N., Sturgis, P.
- Estimating the effects of nonresponses in online panels through imputation; 2014; Zhang, W.
- An empirical test of the impact of smartphones on panel-based online data collection; 2014; Drewes, F.
- Professional respondents in nonprobability online panels; 2014; Hillygus, D. S., Jackson, N. M., Young, M.
- Informing panel members about study results; 2014; Scherpenzeel, A., Toepoel, V.
- Determinants of the starting rate and the completion rate in online panel studies; 2014; Goeritz, A.
- The untold story of multi-mode (online and mail) consumer panels; 2014; McCutcheon, A. L., Rao, K., Kaminska, O.
- Online panels and validity; 2014; Groenlund, K., Strandberg, K.
- Assessing representativeness of a probability-based online panel in Germany; 2014; Struminskaya, B., Kaczmirek, L., Schaurer, I., Bandilla, W.
- A critical review of studies investigating the quality of data obtained with online panels based on...; 2014; Callegaro, M., Villar, A., Yeager, D. S., Krosnick, J. A.
- Online panel research: History, concepts, applications and a look at the future; 2014; Callegaro, M., Baker, R., Bethlehem, J., Goeritz, A., Krosnick, J. A., Lavrakas, P. J.
- Motives for joining nonprobability online panels and their association with survey participation behavior...; 2014; Keusch, F., Batinic, B., Mayerhofer, W.
- Improving web survey quality; 2014; Steinmetz, S., Bianchi, S. M., Tijdens, K. G., Biffignandi, S.