Professor of Survey Methodology, University of Essex
- Tweets56
- Following9
- Followers197
- Likes1
ALT Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study has a programme of research and development that underpins innovations in data collection methods. One of our current focuses is on using mobile applications to collect additional data that supplement data collected in annual interviews. To date, we have used mobile apps to collect data on consumer expenditure, well-being, anthropometrics and cognition. In this paper, we review the potential barriers to data collection using mobile apps and experimental evidence collected with the Understanding Society Innovation Panel, on what can be done to reduce these barriers.
ALT We use experimental mixed-mode data from a probability survey in Great Britain to examine why respondents are less likely to consent to data linkage in online than face-to-face interviews. We find that the 30 percentage point difference in consent rates is a causal effect of the mode on willingness to consent; it is not due to selection of different types of respondents into web and face-to-face interviews. We find that respondents are less likely to understand the data linkage request, less likely to process the consent request thoroughly, and more likely to be concerned about privacy and data security when answering online rather than in a face-to-face interview. Using digital audio-recordings of the face-to-face interviews, we find that verbal behaviours of interviewers do not explain the mode effects: respondents only rarely ask questions or express concern, and interviewers only rarely offer additional information about the data linkage.
