March 2021 – Adapting Push-to-Web Survey Designs for Use in Different Countries and Situations

Presented by Don A. Dillman
Watch HERE 

SLIDES

Don A. Dillman is Regents professor in the Department of Sociology and Deputy Director for research and development in the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at Washington State University in Pullman, WA, USA.  His research team received the 2017 Warren Mitofsky Award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research for the development of web-push data collection methods, and he continues to research ways of improving them.

Webinar Description:
Countries throughout the world are seeking alternatives to in-person and telephone surveys of the general public in order to improve data quality and lower costs. To accomplish this, web-push surveys that involve an initial postal contact to request internet responses followed by mail questionnaire and perhaps other mode requests are being evaluated in a number of countries. This presentation draws upon the author’s experiences in developing a web-push methodology and subsequently helping surveyors design web-push surveys in 10 countries on four continents. It briefly summarizes factors that the presenter has found important for improving response rates to web-push surveys and reducing nonresponse error (Dillman, 2017, Survey Methodology, Statistics Canada). It goes on to discuss specific barriers to adopting web-push methods, including the lack of adequate theory (Dillman, 2020, in Brenner, P. Understanding Survey Methodology. Springer) that prevent some surveyors from considering the use of web-push methodologies. The confrontation now occurring between efforts to use web-push methodologies in various countries and surveyor desires to avoid changing discontinuing long-established data collection methods for mixed-mode designs is the focus of this presentation. The need for new research to help resolve these conflicts and provide better guidance for designing web-push surveys will be articulated.

Mike Traugott, former president of WAPOR, will moderate the webinar.

WAPOR has set up a program of webinars, open to the public. We will have three types of webinars: Thematic webinars, regional webinars and methodological training. 

February 2021 Webinar – Electoral Polls in Difficult Times
November 2020 Webinar – WAPOR-GBS Joint Webinar: Pandemic, Governance, and Comparative Public Opinion Research
September 2020 Webinar – Advances in Comparative Survey Methods
July 2020 Webinar – Mixed Mode and Mixed Device Surveys: Why, When, and How
June 2020 Webinar – COVID-19: How We Ask Questions, Collect the Data and What Do We Learn? 
May 2020 Webinar – Changes in Survey Research in Times of COVID-19
September 2019 Webinar