Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Due to their lower costs and shorter fieldwork periods, web surveys are increasingly used in official statistics. To benefit most from their advantages, it is important to determine how many reminders have to be used and when the fieldwork period has to be ended. The salience of the survey topic may affect if and when sampled persons decide to respond. Hence, timings of reminders and duration of fieldwork may be related to survey outcomes. This article presents results from a large national probability sample (Dutch Health Survey) where a web survey was used as the first response mode. The effects of number of days between invitation and the response to this request (response time) on survey estimates were studied. Since the observed differences between early, intermediate and late respondents may be correlated with demographics, a calibration approach (generalized regression) was used to control for such differences between response time groups. The results were used as indicators for the missing data mechanisms MCAR, MAR, MNAR. In this dataset, only one variable (percentage of people who visited a medical specialist) seemed to be subject to MNAR. Based on the results, a fieldwork period of at least two weeks is recommended for health web surveys.

Keywords

Time to respond selection bias missing-data mechanisms calibration generalized regression

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Callegaro

Manfreda

Vehovar

. Web Survey Methodology. Los Angeles: Sage; 2015.

Bethlehem

Biffignandi

. Handbook of Web Surveys. Hoboken: Wiley; 2012. doi: 10.1002/9781118121757.

Groves

Presser

Dipko

. The Role of Topic Interest in Survey Participation Decisions. Public Opinion Quarterly. 2004; 68(1): 2-31. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfh002.

Bethlehem

. Web Surveys in Official Statistics. In: Engel

Jann

Lynn

Scherpenzeel

Sturgis

, editors. Improving Survey Methods: Lessons from Recent Research. Routledge; 2015. p. 156-169.

Rogers

Murtaugh

Edwards

Slattery

. Contacting Controls: Are We Working Harder for Similar Response Rates, and Does It Make a Difference? American Journal of Epidemiology. 2004; 160(1): 85-90. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwh176.

Zhao

Stockwell

MacDonald

. Non-response Bias in Alcohol and Drug Population Surveys. Drug and Alcohol Review. 2009; 28(6): 648-657. doi: 10.1111/j.1465-3362.2009.00077.x.

Irani

Gregg

Telg

. Choosing to Use the Web: Comparing Early and Late Respondents to an Online Web-based Designed to Assess IT Computer Skills Perceptions of County Extension Agents. Journal of Southern Agricultural Education Research. 2004; 54(1): 168-179.

Kypri

Stephenson

Langley

. Assessment of Nonresponse Bias in an Internet Survey of Alcohol Use. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 2004; 29(4): 630-634. doi:10.1097/01.ALC.0000121654.99277.26.

Kypri

Samaranayaka

Connor

Langley

Maclennan

. Non-response Bias in a Web-based Health Behaviour Survey of New Zealand Tertiary Students. Preventive Medicine. 2011; 53(4–5): 274-277. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2011.07.017.

10.

Bakke

Gulsvik

Lilleng

Overå

Hanoa

Eide

. Postal Survey on Airborne Occupational Exposure and Respiratory Disorders in Norway: Causes and Consequences of Non-response. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 1990; 44(4): 316-320.

11.

Brøgger

Bakke

Eide

Gulsvik

. Contribution of Follow-up of Nonrespondents to Prevalence and Risk Estimates: A Norwegian Respiratory Health Survey. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2003; 157(6): 558-566. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwg003.

12.

Helasoja

Prättälä

Dregval

Pudule

Kasmel

. Late Response and Item Nonresponse in the Finbalt Health Monitor System. European Journal of Public Health. 2002; 12(2): 117-123.

13.

Meiklejohn

Connor

Kypri

. The Effect of Low Survey Response Rates on Estimates of Alcohol Consumption in a General Population Survey. PLoS ONE. 2012; 7(4): 1-6. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035527.

14.

Maclennan

Kypri

Langley

Room

. Non-response Bias in a Community Survey of Drinking, Alcohol-related Experiences and Public Opinion on Alcohol Policy. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 2012; 126(1-2): 189-194. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.05.014.

15.

Rönmark

Ekerljung

Lötvall

Torén

Rönmark

Lundbäck

. Large Scale Questionnaire Survey on Respiratory Health in Sweden: Effects of Late- and Non-response. Respiratory Medicine. 2009; 103(12): 1907-1815. doi: 10.1016/j.rmed.2009.07.014.

16.

Rubin

. Inference and Missing Data. Biometrika. 1976; 63(3): 581-592. doi: 10.1093/biomet/63.3.581.

17.

Little

RJA

Rubin

. Statistical Analysis with Missing Data. 2nd ed. Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics. Hoboken: Wiley; 2002.

18.

Horvitz

Thompson

. A Generalization of Sampling Without Replacement from a Finite Universe. Journal of the American Statistical Association. 1952; 47(260): 663-685.

19.

Särdnal

Swensson

Wretman

. Model Assisted Survey Sampling. New York: Springer; 1992.

20.

Molenberghs

Beunckens

Sotto

Kenward

. Every Missingness Not at Random Model Has a Missingness at Random Counterpart with Equal Fit. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology). 2008; 70(2): 371-388. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9868.2007.00640.x.

21.

Burnham

Anderson

. Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-theory Approach. 2nd ed. New York: Springer; 2002. doi: 10.1007/b97636.

22.

Tukey

. Comparing Individual Means in the Analysis of Variance. Biometrics. 1949; 5(2): 99-114. doi: 10.2307/3001913.

23.

L umley

. Package ‘survey’; 2017. Accessed: 2017-08-18. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/survey/survey.pdf.

24.

Venables

Ripley

. Modern Applied Statistics with S. 4th ed. New York: Springer; 2002. doi: 10.1007/978-0-387-21706-2.

25.

Schouten

van den Brakel

Buelens

van der Laan

Klausch

. Disentangling Mode-specific Selection and Measurement Bias in Social Surveys. Social Science Research. 2013; 42(6): 1555-1570. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.07.005.

26.

Schnell

Noack

Torregroza

. Differences in General Health of Internet Users and Non-users and Implications for the Use of Web Surveys. Survey Research Methods. 2017; 11(2): 105-123. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.18148/srm/2017.v11i2.6803.

Early versus late respondents in web surveys: Evidence from a national health survey

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References