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Does Survey Mode Still Matter? Findings from a 2010 Multi-Mode Comparison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Stephen Ansolabehere  and
Brian F. Schaffner
Stephen Ansolabehere
Affiliation:
Harvard University, 1737 Cambridge Street, CGIS Knafel Building 410, Cambridge, MA 02138. e-mail: sda@gov.harvard.edu
Brian F. Schaffner*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Thompson Hall 316, 200 Hicks Way, Amherst, MA 01003
*
e-mail: schaffne@polsci.umass.edu (corresponding author)
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Abstract

In this article, we present data from a three-mode survey comparison study carried out in 2010. National surveys were fielded at the same time over the Internet (using an opt-in Internet panel), by telephone with live interviews (using a national Random Digit Dialing (RDD) sample of landlines and cell phones), and by mail (using a national sample of residential addresses). Each survey utilized a nearly identical questionnaire soliciting information across a range of political and social indicators, many of which can be validated with government data. Comparing the findings from the modes using a Total Survey Error approach, we demonstrate that a carefully executed opt-in Internet panel produces estimates that are as accurate as a telephone survey and that the two modes differ little in their estimates of other political indicators and their correlates.

Type
Symposium on Advances in Survey Methodology
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , Summer 2014 , pp. 285 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

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