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Web Survey Bibliography

Title Internet and Smartphone Coverage in a National Health Survey: Implications for Alternative Modes
Year 2015
Access date 22.08.2016
Abstract
The rise of Internet-enabled smartphones presents an opportunity to re-examine the issue of Internet coverage and its implications for coverage bias. While a number of papers have examined cell phone coverage and Internet coverage separately, few have looked at the possible compensatory effects of joint coverage. We added two interviewer observations (one on Internet access and the other on smartphone ownership among respondents) to the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) with a view to exploring the feasibility of Internet-based follow-up surveys. NSFG is a national probability survey of women and men age 15-44, using a continuous design. We examine 8 quarters (2 years) of data, from September 2012 to August 2014.
Overall, we find that 82.2% of respondent report Internet access and 76.1% report having a smartphone (estimates weighted for differential selection and nonresponse). Combined, this means that 89.4% have access to the Internet, either via traditional devices or via a smartphone. We also find some evidence of compensatory coverage when looking at key gender/race/age subgroups. For instance, while Black male teens (15-17) have the lowest rate of Internet access (74.9%) and the lowest rate of smartphone usage (58.9%), when combined 82.6% have some form of Internet access.
We propose to examine the socio-demographic correlates of Internet and smartphone (and combined) coverage (access) in this population. In addition, we propose to look at the effect of differential coverage on key estimates produced by the NSFG, related to fertility, family formation, and sexual activity. While this does not address nonresponse bias issues related to alternative modes, our paper has implications for possible coverage biases that may arise in switching to a Web-based mode of data collection, either for follow-up surveys or to replace the main face-to-face data collection.
Year of publication2015
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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