Junior Research Fellow in Politics Dr Farsan Ghassim has published a paper in the British Journal of Political Science that explores how to make online surveys more effective.
Dr Ghassim observed that many fundamental methodological questions in this relatively new age of online surveys are still unanswered or lack a solid evidence base. One of these questions was to what extent interactive response requests are helpful or perhaps even counterproductive. He set out to answer that question by integrating an experiment on response requests into his survey on more than 32,000 respondents in ten countries worldwide.Â
His study outlines different pathways whereby follow-up requests may effectively increase response rates and improve data quality: reminding, motivating, instructing, monitoring, and sanctioning. In the survey experiment, Dr Ghassim finds that follow-up requests generally increase response rates, although effects vary by survey design, question type, and country context. Depending on the question and survey design, interactive requests reduce item non-responses by up to 47 per cent across countries, while not adversely affecting data quality.
Dr Ghassim therefore recommends that survey researchers use response requests to increase the efficiency of their data gathering efforts. He said:
I hope that my study will help survey researchers in designing their studies optimally, specifically by making response requests a standard element of their methodological repertoire. As public opinion is becoming ever more important in this age of polarization, it is crucial that we study it accurately. I hope that my research contributes to that work.
