Field Methods

Event history calendars (EHCs) are frequently used in social measurement to capture important information about the time ordering of events in people’s lives and enable inference about the relationships of the events with other outcomes of interest. To date, EHCs have primarily been designed for face-to-face or telephone survey interviewing, and few calendar tools have been developed for more private, self-administered modes of data collection. Web surveys offer benefits in terms of both self-administration, which can reduce social desirability bias, and timeliness. We developed and tested a web application enabling the calendar-based measurement of contraceptive method use histories. These measures provide valuable information for researchers studying family planning and fertility behaviors. This study describes the development of the web application and presents a comparison of data collected from online panels using the application with data from a benchmark face-to-face survey collecting similar measures (the National Survey of Family Growth).

We tested a novel extension to mailed invitations to a web-push survey, using a postcard invitation to deliver a scratch-off giftcode incentive similar to an instant-win lottery ticket. Scratch-off postcards were included as one of five conditions in randomized survey experiment varying two mailing types (letter and postcard) and three incentive types (prepaid cash, prepaid giftcodes, and conditional giftcodes). Invitations were sent to a sample of 17,808 addresses in Boston, Massachusetts, recruiting for a new online panel study of city residents. We report response rates and costs for each condition. Findings suggest that letters achieve higher response rates than postcards and are more cost effective overall. We also find that conditional incentives achieve higher response rates and are more cost effective, although conflating factors do not permit clear inferences. Notably, the novel scratch-off postcard condition achieved the lowest response rate and the highest costs per completed survey.

To ensure the accuracy of self-reported data, it is important to reduce potential sources of bias such as the unwanted influence of prior questions on subsequent questions, the so-called item context effect. This article attempts to replicate the finding that evaluative subjective well-being was affected by a preceding item, a question about the political atmosphere in the country; it also examines manipulations that could mitigate the impact of the context-inducing item on well-being. Study 1 used a sample of 4,500 participants recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk; it examined the effect of three manipulations based on adding buffer questions or adding text to reorient participants’ attention. A context effect was found, and one manipulation mitigated the context effect. Study 2 used a nationally representative sample (n = 906); it only replicated the context effect. These results reaffirm the importance of carefully considering item context effects in survey research.

We examine relationships between interviewers’ nonverbal behaviors and adequate responding in face-to-face survey interviews. We videotaped professional interviewers administering face-to-face survey interviews and coded them for three interviewer nonverbal behaviors: smiling, nodding, and direct gaze. These nonverbal interviewer behaviors were associated with significant increases in the frequency of respondents’ adequate responses. Moreover, the nonverbal behaviors were equally likely to present in standardized and unstandardized utterances. These results suggest that interviewers’ nonverbal behaviors positively correlate with adequate responding without deviating from standardized interview protocols. We discuss implications for survey theory and interviewer training.

This research analyzes the effectiveness of the list experiment and crosswise model in measuring self-plagiarism and data manipulation. Both methods were implemented in a large-scale survey of academics on social norms and academic misconduct. As the results lend little confidence about the effectiveness of the methods, researchers are best advised to avoid them or, at best, to handle them with care.

This article presents design principles and practical steps for web-based Q methodology surveys. Drawing on the experience of two online Q studies, we discuss theoretical concerns, sort and survey design, software programs, and issues in researcher–participant engagement. We argue that opening Q methodology to online modes of data collection is important to capture greater diversity in social perspectives and geographies.