Relevance & Research Questions: The internet has become an integral part of our lives and takes on an increasingly important role in survey research. The strength of this process is, as Dillman (2007: 400) puts it in a nutshell: “there is no other method of collecting survey data that offers so much potential for so little cost as Web surveys”. Despite and/or because of this progress, at least three related issues of online-data collection (apart from problems with sampling frames) are (still) challenging: i) response rates, ii) motivation and iii) mobility of respondents. The presentation aims to explore their relationship and its consequences for data quality. The main research question is: Does mobility decrease the participants’ motivation (to respond) and subsequently compromise data quality? For answering this question, the theoretical framework of “satisfizing” is applied to measure motivation, taking theoretical considerations about mobility into account.

Methods & Data: The analyses are based on an online-survey dealing with student participation at the university. Motivation strategies in terms of experimental arrangements were included to facilitate the identification of ”satisfizing”. The survey population was randomly divided into groups differentiated by the presence of specific “triggers”. 14.2% of the students (n=17,491) reacted to the invitation, 1916 (11%) answered at least one question but just 7.3% (n=1282) reached the final page.

Results: Mobility affects response rates in terms of significantly higher drop-out rates of mobile respondents. Unexpectedly, the percentage of item non-responses does not differ between mobile and non-mobile respondents, when drop-outs are excluded. However, drop-outs do not significantly influence sample composition concerning study related variables and demographic data. But, the respondents’ involvement in issues related to the survey-topic reduces drop-outs as well as satisfizing strategies does. Both variants have consequences on substantive results, whereas the latter is expected to be connected to mobility.

Added Value: The paper aims to emphasize the importance of record the setting of data collection and satisfizing strategies in case of self-administered online-surveys as it has consequences which are otherwise difficult to verify.

Literature: Dillman, D.A. (2007). Mail and Internet Surveys. The Tailored Design Method. New York: Wiley.