Willingness to participate in in-the-moment surveys triggered by online behaviours.

Presenter: Carlos Ochoa (RECSM - Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
 

November 2021, 23

The webinar will be held at 12.00 (CET)

Surveys are a fundamental tool of empirical research, but they suffer from errors: in particular, respondents can have difficulties recalling information of interest for researchers. Latest technological developments offer new opportunities to collect data passively (i.e., without participant's intervention), avoiding errors of recall. Registering online behaviours (e.g., visited URLs) by means of a 'meter' software voluntarily installed by a sample of individuals on their browsing devices, is one of these opportunities. However, metered data is also affected by errors and cannot cover all the information of interest. Asking participants about such missing information by means of web surveys conducted in the precise moment an event of interest is detected by the meter has the potential to fill the gap. However, this method requires participants to be willing to participate.

In this webinar, the results of recent research on the willingness to participate in in-the-moment web surveys triggered by metered data will be presented. A conjoint experiment implemented in an opt-in metered panel in Spain (N=804) revealed overall high levels of willingness to participate, ranging from 69% to 95%, depending on the conditions offered to participants. The main aspects affecting this willingness are related to the incentives offered. Differences across participants were observed for household size, education, and personality traits. Answers to open questions also confirmed that the incentive is the key driver to decide to participate, while other potential problematic aspects such as the limited time to participate, privacy concerns, and discomfort caused by being interrupted play a limited role.

Finally, participants were also asked about their preferences in the method used to be invited to participate in in-the-moment surveys. The results showed that panelists are willing to accept several invitation methods, being those using smartphones the ones obtaining higher levels of acceptance and coverage, as well as the ones that most panelists consider they would see first. 

Join this webinar via Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84013757197