Web Survey Bibliography
Can self-identification of occupation be applied in web surveys by using a look-up table with coded occupational titles, in contrast to other survey modes where an open format question with office-coding has to be applied? This article is among the first to explore this approach, using a random sampled web survey (N=3,224) with a three-level search tree with 1,603 occupations and offering a text box at the bottom of each 3rd level list. 67% of respondents ticked in total 585 occupations, of which 349 by at least two respondents and 236 by only one, pointing to a long tail in the distribution. The text box was used by 32% of respondents, adding 207 occupational titles. Multivariate analysis shows that text box use was related to poor search paths and absent occupations. Search paths for five of the 23 first-level entries should be improved and the look-up table should be extended to 3,000 occupations. In this way, text box use and, thus, expensive manual coding could be reduced substantially. For such large look-up tables semantic matching tools are preferred over search trees to ease respondent’s self-identification and thus self-coding.
Web survey bibliography - Survey Methods: Insights from the field (8)
- What do web survey panel respondents answer when asked “Do you have any other comment?”; 2015; Schonlau, M.
- A Free Audio-CASI Module for LimeSurvey; 2015; Beier, H.; Schulz, S.
- Self-identification of occupation in web surveys: requirements for search trees and look-up tables ; 2015; Tijdens, K. G.
- Data Collection Mode Effects On Political Knowledge; 2014; Liu, M., Wang, Y.
- Does the Choice of Header Images influence Responses? Findings from a Web Survey on Students’...; 2014; Barth, A.
- The impact of contact effort on mode-specific selection and measurement bias; 2014; Schouten, B., van der Laan, J., Cobben, F.
- A Comparison of Results from a Spanish and English Mail Survey: Effects of Instruction Placement on...; 2013; Wang, K., Sha, M.
- Research Note: Reducing the Threat of Sensitive Questions in Online Surveys?; 2013; Couper, M. P.