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Web Survey Bibliography

Title Item Non Response and Dropouts in Web Surveys
Year 2004
Access date 14.09.2004
Abstract Dropouts and item non-response are major problems in online surveys, respondents often do not fill out the complete questionnaire. To avoid dropouts and item non-response, questionnaires are often very short and contain simple constructed items only. However, dropouts might be also caused by the way of contacting the respondents. In the framework of a survey conducted by the German Central Library of Medicine (GCLM), medical professionals such as University professors and practitioners (self-employed and in hospitals) were asked for their information behaviour. The questionnaire contains 69 items, some of them with high complexity. We used several different ways for contacting them: 1. Via personal e-mails in which the medical professionals were asked to enter the server where the questionnaire was located. 2. Via pop-up-windows that were placed within the web-pages of the GCLM and within a certain medical information provider where only registered medical professionals have access. 3. Via a link that was integrated in the homepage of Multimedica, which is also an important information provider for medical professionals. As incentive for participating in the survey the respondents were offered three copies of articles from scientific medical journals of their choice (free of charge). After six weeks more than 5000 medical professionals were contacted and more than 1800 interviews were completed without dropouts. Considering the complexity of the individual items, in the presentation we will show the effect of the way of contacting the respondents on dropouts and item non-response.
Year of publication2004
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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Web survey bibliography - Germany (361)

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