Relevance & Research Question:It is argued that traditional ways of collecting social surveys are threatened by the rising data-collection costs and the declining response rates. In an attempt to solve this problem, researchers have started to utilize cheaper and easier data collection methods, especially those focusing on various types of online data. Current research on survey methodology has criticized sample-to-population representativeness of many online surveys. At the same time, however, research on how the mode of data collection affects to responses is almost completely lacking. This paper examines whether the survey responses using Web-questionnaire are different from the mail-questionnaire responses when examining respondents’ attitudes towards sensitive issues such as immigrants.

Methods & Data: Our data are derived from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2013. We selected two countries for the analysis, Finland (n=1, 243) and Norway (n=1, 585), both of which applied similar methods of data collection technique (self-conducted mail survey and web survey).

Results: We found that respondents’ tend to answer more negatively towards immigration via mail-questionnaire than Web-questionnaire. The results indicate also that although the popularity of the Web-surveys has increased during recent years, the mode of response is still associated with socio-demographic background, and therefore, the response mode has impact on responses.

Added Value: We suggest that the mixed-mode survey is a reliable method of data collection especially after controlling for background variables and their interactions with the response mode.