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Recruiting a Probability-Based Online Panel via Postal Mail: Experimental Evidence
[journal article]
Abstract Once recruited, probability-based online panels have proven to enable high-quality and high-frequency data collection. In ever faster-paced societies and, recently, in times of pandemic lockdowns, such online survey infrastructures are invaluable to social research. In absence of email sampling fram... view more
Once recruited, probability-based online panels have proven to enable high-quality and high-frequency data collection. In ever faster-paced societies and, recently, in times of pandemic lockdowns, such online survey infrastructures are invaluable to social research. In absence of email sampling frames, one way of recruiting such a panel is via postal mail. However, few studies have examined how to best approach and then transition sample members from the initial postal mail contact to the online panel registration. To fill this gap, we implemented a large-scale experiment in the recruitment of the 2018 sample of the German Internet Panel (GIP) varying panel recruitment designs in four experimental conditions: online-only, concurrent mode, online-first, and paper-first. Our results show that the online-only design delivers higher online panel registration rates than the other recruitment designs. In addition, all experimental conditions led to similarly representative samples on key socio-demographic characteristics.... view less
Keywords
survey research; data capture; online survey; panel; sample; representativity; probability; mail survey
Classification
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Free Keywords
concurrent mode; mixed-mode; offline recruitment; online panels; probability sampling; push-to-web; German Internet Panel (GIP)
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
Page/Pages
p. 1259-1284
Journal
Social Science Computer Review, 40 (2022) 5
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393211006059
ISSN
1552-8286
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed