Title: Understanding the Decision to Participate in a Survey and the Choice of the Response Mode
1Understanding the Decision to Participate in a
Survey and the Choice of the Response Mode
- Anders Holmberg and Boris Lorenc
European Conference on Quality in Official
Statistics Rome, Italy July 11, 2008
2Content
- Introduction to the problem
- Background
- The design of the study
- goals
- setup
- results
- Summary and tentative conclusions
3Mixed Mail-and-Web Surveys
- Swedish individual and household surveys with
Self-Administered Questionnaires (SAQ) - The problem low use of the web alternative
- belief in rationality of the web mode (editing,
other quality aspects, cost, environment) - cannot publicly afford the Web mode only
- possibly, a mode switch (more of which later)
- goal finding a solution with an increase in the
proportion of web respondents and a cost
reduction, without harming the response rate
4Background
- PAP (mail Q) as the standard mode for SAQ
- cover letter, questionnaire, return envelope, in
some cases separate instruction, incentives. - response rates as elsewhere fall gradually
- Web as an alternative mode for SAQ
- introduced in the 2000s for ind/hh surveys in
Sweden - with the expectations of easier input editing,
higher response rate, cost reduction, and greater
acceptance - carried out by including a paper sheet in the
above, with an URL and login data - Reminders
5Background (contd)
- Web as an alternative mode for SAQ (contd)
- its use is optional, according to preference of
external customer or internal statistical product - The expectations were not fulfilled
- mostly due to the webs low use in mail-and-web
mixed mode surveys around 10-15 of the responses
are collected through the web - no previous study of cost done, but impression of
survey managers is that the costs are higher in
the mixed mode than in the single paper mode.
(Development cost of single use SAQs) - Reasons?
6The Parent Survey
- Entry on the labour market after graduation.
- Proportion of NR as well as web respondent were
higher for men than women, (37 vs. 28) and (23
vs. 11) - The proportion of NR is highest in the lowest and
highest income class. - No observed differences in choice of mode with
regards to age and immigrant background.
7Design of the Study
- A study was initiated to understand the reasons
for the low proportion of web responses - conducted as a telephone follow-up
- a simple random sample among the three groups in
the parent survey web respondents (W), paper
respondents (P) and nonrespondents (NR) - sample sizes of about 310 in each group the
response rates 77, 83 and 61 respectively
8Data collection results from interviews
9Design of the Study, the Interview questionnaire
- Specific questions to each group of respondents
- Was the web alternative observed?
- Why/why not use the web questionnaire?
- Preferences regarding choice of response mode
- A follow-up question to the NR-group on their
status of occupation.
10Results Web-mode visibility
- The main results
- 80 of paper respondents saw the web mode.
Roughly 65 of paper respondents saw the web mode
alt. in the first mail-out. Roughly 55 of the
NR-group saw the web mode in the first mail-out. - 75 of the paper respondents who saw the web mode
alt. chose Simplicity of PAP as the reason to
hold onto the mail mode (as did 60 of those
paper respondents who, on another question,
ranked web as the mode of highest preference) - 25 of the paper respondents who saw the web alt.
chose those alternatives that refer to
unavailability of computer or Internet (permanent
or temporal) as the reason
11Results Choice of paper or web
- In an optional open-ended question, 20 of the
paper respondents who saw the web mode alt., gave
circumstantial reasons for using the PAP mode,
namely immediate availability of PAP - security and privacy do not seem to be a concern
- Web respondents
- Over 90 of the web responders had the
simplicity of the web as their main reason for
choosing the web mode.
12Results The Nonrespondents
- gt 60 of nonrespondents declared specific
circumstances as their main reason for not
responding, i.e. lack of time, forgetfulness, etc - Approx. 8 decided not to take part in the parent
survey as they had (fallaciously) interpreted
themselves as being outside the target
population.
13Results Question on mode of preference
14Respondent Suggestions to increase web use
- Send survey invitations through e-mail
- Discard the paper questionnaire
- Make the web-option obvious and the only
alternative - Provide incentives for web responses
- Have functioning technical solutions
15Summary
- Observations
- The web option is not visible enough
- The mail mode is considered simple (easily move
around, change entries, break and continue) - Circumstantial reasons the what is at hand
principle - Conclusions/changes
- Strategy change needed when SAQ is mailed
- Marketing of the web alternative
- Other technical solution when receiving web
questionnaires - Construction environment.
16Thank You!
- Anders Holmberg and Boris Lorenc
firstname.surname_at_scb.se