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Web Survey Bibliography

Title Pushing to web in the ISSP
Year 2017
Access date 08.09.2017
Abstract The use of mixed-mode surveys has become common in recent years, especially in countries with high internet penetration. The purpose of these mixed designs has been threefold: to improve population coverage, improve response rate and reduce survey costs. Self-administered questionnaires, both postal and web questionnaires are accepted as valid modes of data collection by the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) making it an ideal vehicle for methodological experiments. This paper describes results from four different modules of the ISSP in Iceland where a random sample of the general population was either offered a choice of answering the questionnaire on paper or online, pushed to answer on the web or randomly assigned to the different modes in order to disentangle selection and mode effects. 
The ISSP module on Environment in 2011 was implemented in Iceland as a mixed-mode survey: a probability sample of the general population under age of 50 was first contacted by telephone and asked to complete a questionnaire on the web, while those over age of 50 were allowed to choose web or mail (a concurrent mixed-mode design). In the ISSP module on Citizenship in 2014 five countries participated in a mode experiment where a probability sample of the general population was randomly assigned to different modes, web or paper. These countries were Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway, all with internet penetration over 90% and Spain with a somewhat lower internet penetration rate, under 80%. In four out of five countries, response rate turned out to be higher in the web mode than in the paper mode. In the ISSP module on Work Orientations 2015 a probability sample of the general population was, in a letter, invited to answer the questionnaire online but asked to send an e-mail or call if they preferred to answer on paper. Finally, in the ISSP module on Role of Government in 2016 a probability sample of the general population was invited to answer the questionnaire online, but telephone calls and text messages were used to boost the response rate.
Results show that response rate in internet surveys in countries with high internet penetration is in many cases higher than with other modes – and that for most of the survey variables in many respects a web survey alone may be the optimal method of collecting data, when considering the quality of answers, costs, bias and mean squared error.
Year of publication2017
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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Web survey bibliography (4086)

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