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Web Survey Bibliography

Title Interviewer effects on onliner and offliner participation in the German Internet Panel
Author Herzing, J. M. E.; Blom, A. G.; Meuleman, B.
Source European survey research associaton conference 2017, ESRA, Lisbon
Year 2017
Access date 16.09.2017
Abstract Research has shown that interviewers play a crucial role in obtaining cooperation from sample units. While previous studies investigate the influence of interviewers on unit nonresponse, they typically focus on face-to-face or telephone interviews. Yet recently, we have seen a rise in probability-based online panels, where interviewers recruit panelists for the online panel during face-to-face or telephone interviews. Furthermore, we know from research that recruiting previously offline sample units into probability-based online panels is difficult and that high nonresponse rates among such offliners threaten the representativeness of online panels. Our paper therefore considers the role that interviewers play in recruiting offliners into a probability-based online panel. 
We use data from the recruitment interview of the German Internet Panel (GIP). The GIP is a probability-based, face-to-face recruited online panel, which includes persons without computers and/or internet by equipping them with needed devices. In addition, we use data from an interviewer survey conducted among the interviewers involved in the face-to-face recruitment of the GIP. 
We investigate whether there is an interviewer effect on people’s likelihood to participate in the GIP. We analyze which interviewer characteristics determine participation in the GIP and investigate whether the interviewer effects and explanatory interviewer characteristics found differ, when interviewers try to recruit previously-offline as compared to previously-online persons. 
We find significant interviewer effects on participation in the GIP. We further find that interviewers do not differentially affect the participation of onliners and offliners. However, the interviewer characteristics associated with the successful recruitment of onliners differs from those associated with recruiting offliners. For example, older interviewers are better at recruiting offliners than younger interviewers, but interviewer age has no effect on the recruitment of onliners. In addition, interviewers who expect to achieve higher recruitment rates are better at recruiting onliners than interviewers expecting low recruitment rates, but interviewers’ expectations have no effect on offliner recruitment. 
Access/Direct link Conference Homepage (abstract) / (presentation)
Year of publication2017
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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Web survey bibliography - European survey research associaton conference 2017, ESRA, Lisbon (26)