Project Details
Projekt
Video-interviewing as part of a targeted multi-mode design in household panel surveys
Subject Area
Empirical Social Research
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 539562958
To ensure continued survey participation and data quality among respondents, the survey landscape has to adapt to the changing societal reality, especially in terms of mobility and digitization. This requires survey researchers to move away from one-size-fits-all solutions to a data collection strategy which takes into account people’s communication habits, skills, and preferences. For many decades, Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) used to be the best-practice gold-standard in survey research. With declining response rates, increasing costs, and diverging preferences, however, enhanced survey mode solutions must be found. Computer-Assisted Web-Interviewing (CAWI) has been shown to be a useful self-administered and cost-effective supplement, but for many applications including rather complex household surveys, it is not a suitable replacement. Given a growing prevalence of videoconferencing in many people’s lives, Computer-Assisted Live Video Interviewing (CALVI) can act as a new alternative survey mode. The advantage of CALVI is the interviewer's assistance in navigating long and complex survey instruments to ensure completeness and quality of data, without having an interviewer on site. Additionally, CALVI employs web-based data collection techniques, which accelerate the fieldwork process, provide greater flexibility for respondents, and reduce costs. Nevertheless, there is limited existing evidence regarding the impact of CALVI usage in longitudinal studies yet. With the submitted research project, it is planned to ascertain the circumstances, extent, and specific demographic subgroups for which video-interviewing should be implemented. This encompasses the examination of potential nonresponse biases which may arise when CALVI is utilized for both first-time respondents and established panel members (starting from a CAPI-CAWI field). The project has two goals: First, to test and optimize the feasibility of CALVI in a mixed-mode household panel survey namely the SOEP innovation panel (SOEP-IS). Second, to develop a targeted multi-mode survey strategy, which includes CALVI alongside CAPI and CAWI designed to maximize response rates and data quality given a fixed financial budget. The goals will be achieved in three steps: 1) implementing CALVI experimentally in the 2024 SOEP-IS data collection wave, 2) developing a model-based mode assignment strategy using the gathered data, and 3) experimentally rolling out the developed strategy in the 2025 SOEP-IS data collection wave.
DFG Programme
Infrastructure Priority Programmes
