Bella Struminskaya

Utrecht University | UU · Department of Methodology and Statistics

Probability sample (PS) surveys are considered the gold standard for population-based inference but face many challenges due to decreasing response rates, relatively small sample sizes, and increasing costs. In contrast, the use of nonprobability sample (NPS) surveys has increased significantly due to their convenience, large sample sizes, and rela...

Data donation forms an innovative and ethical approach to collection of digital trace data. It relies on the EU legislation around personal data, which mandates data controllers to provide data subjects with a copy on personal data collected on them upon request. Participants in data donation studies can request a data controller (e.g. online platf...

Survey researchers frequently use supplementary data sources, such as paradata, administrative data, and contextual data to augment surveys and enhance substantive and methodological research capabilities. While these data sources can be beneficial, integrating them with surveys can give rise to ethical and data privacy issues that have not been co...

Learning effects due to repeated interviewing, also known as panel conditioning, are a major threat to response quality in later waves of a panel study. To date, research has not provided a clear picture regarding the circumstances, mechanisms, and dimensions of potential panel conditioning effects. In particular, the effects of conditioning freque...

Satisficing response behavior can be a threat to the quality of survey responses. Past research has provided broad empirical evidence on the existence of satisficing and its consequences on data quality, however, relatively little is known about the extent of satisficing over the course of a panel study and its impact on response quality in later w...

As ever more surveys are conducted, recruited respondents are more likely to already have previous survey experience. Furthermore, it has become more difficult to convince individuals to participate in surveys, and thus, incentives are increasingly used. Both previous survey experience and participation in surveys due to incentives have been discus...

Our paper proposes a method of combining probability and non-probability samples to improve analytic inference on logistic regression model parameters. A Bayesian framework is considered where only a small probability sample is available and the information from a parallel non-probability sample is provided naturally through the prior. A simulation...

Learning effects due to repeated interviewing, which are referred to as panel conditioning, are a major threat to response quality in later waves of a panel study. Up to date, research has not provided a clear picture regarding the circumstances, mechanisms, and dimensions of potential panel conditioning effects. Especially the effects of condition...

This study investigates how an auto-forward design, where respondents navigate through a web survey automatically, affects response times and navigation behavior in a long mixed-device web survey. We embedded an experiment in a health survey administered to the general population in The Netherlands to test the auto-forward design against a manual-f...

Smartphone sensors allow measurement of phenomena that are difficult or impossible to capture via self-report (e.g., geographical movement, physical activity). Sensors can reduce respondent burden by eliminating survey questions and improve measurement accuracy by replacing/augmenting self-reports. However, if respondents who are not willing to col...

Survey researchers are often confronted with the question of how long to set the length of the field period. Longer fielding time might lead to greater participation yet requires survey managers to devote more of their time to data collection efforts. With the aim of facilitating the decision about the length of the field period, we investigated wh...

This chapter provides an overview of findings about the mechanisms, presence, and magnitude of the effects of panel conditioning and offers practical guidelines regarding survey design that would allow the effects of disadvantageous panel conditioning to be minimised. It reviews the literature, with purposeful selection of studies, including studie...

The growing smartphone penetration and the integration of smartphones into people’s everyday practices offer researchers opportunities to augment survey measurement with smartphone-sensor measurement or to replace self-reports. Potential benefits include lower measurement error, a widening of research questions, collection of in situ data, and a lo...

The increasing volume of "Big Data" produced by sensors and smart devices can transform the social and behavioral sciences. Several successful studies used digital data to provide new insights into social reality. This special issue argues that the true power of these data for the social sciences lies in connecting new data sources with surveys. Wh...

Panel conditioning is a type of measurement error specific to longitudinal surveys, that is, surveys that administer repeated measurements of the same units at different time points. Panel conditioning can be also referred to as “time-in-sample bias,” “panel effect,” “panel bias,” “rotation group bias,” or “measurement reactivity.” It is a learning...

Online surveys are increasingly completed on smartphones. There are several ways to structure online surveys so as to create an optimal experience for any screen size. For example, communicating through applications (apps) such as WhatsApp and Snapchat closely resembles natural turn-by-turn conversations between individuals. Web surveys currently m...

This chapter reviews existing literature on concern with and willingness to engage in active and passive forms of mobile data collection. It describes four online surveys conducted in two countries that all administered a similar set of questions on concern with five different forms of mobile data collection. The chapter uses these data to analyze...

Reluctance of respondents to participate in surveys has long drawn the attention of survey researchers. Yet, little is known about what drives a respondent’s decision to answer the survey invitation early or late during the field period. Moreover, we still lack evidence on response timing in longitudinal surveys. That is, the questions on whether r...

There is an ongoing debate in the survey research literature about whether and when probability and nonprobability sample surveys produce accurate estimates of a larger population. Statistical theory provides a justification for confidence in probability sampling as a function of the survey design, whereas inferences based on nonprobability samplin...

Declining response rates worldwide have stimulated interest in understanding what may be influencing this decline and how it varies across countries and survey populations. In this paper, we describe the development and validation of a short 9-item survey attitude scale that measures three important constructs, thought by many scholars to be relate...

The rising penetration of smartphones now gives researchers the chance to collect data from smartphone users through passive mobile data collection via apps. Examples of passively collected data include geolocation, physical movements, online behavior and browser history, and app usage. However, to passively collect data from smartphones, participa...

Mobile Befragungen (auch: „Web Surveys for Mobile Devices“) sind ein Spezialfall von webbasierten Befragungen bzw. Online-Befragungen (Wagner-Schelewsky/Hering, Kapitel 54 in diesem Band). Die Besonderheit besteht darin, dass die Teilnahme an einer derartigen Befragung durch mit dem Internet verbundene Mobilgeräte („Mobile Devices“) wie etwa Tablet...

This article investigates the data quality of ego-centered social network modules in web surveys. It specifically examines whether these modules are subject to the effects of the repeated measurement of the same questions known as panel conditioning effects. Ego-centered social network modules are especially at risk of panel conditioning effects be...

Zentraler Vorteil von Onlinebefragungen auf mobilen Endgeräten (Tablet, Smartphone) ist ihre Allgegenwart und ihr technologisches Potenzial. Umfragemethodisch sind solche Befragungen jedoch eine Herausforderung und die Konsequenzen für die Datenqualität nicht ignorierbar.

Various open probability-based panel infrastructures have been established in recent years, allowing researchers to collect high-quality survey data. In this report, we describe the processes and deliverables of setting up the GESIS Panel, the first probability-based mixed-mode panel infrastructure in Germany open for data collection to the academi...

The use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for survey completion is growing rapidly, raising concerns regarding data quality in general, and nonresponse and measurement error in particular. We use the data from six online waves of the GESIS Panel, a probability-based mixed-mode panel representative of the German population to study w...

One of the methods for evaluating online panels in terms of data quality is comparing the estimates that the panels provide with benchmark sources. For probability-based online panels, high-quality surveys or government statistics can be used as references. If differences among the benchmark and the online panel estimates are found, these can have...

In this article, we investigate changes in survey reporting due to prior interviewing. Two field experiments were implemented in a probability-based online panel in which the order of the questionnaires was switched. Although experimental methods for studying panel conditioning are favorable, experiments in longitudinal studies are rare. Studies on...

The growth of online survey research has led to an increased demand for probability-based online panels. Several of such panels are established in Europe and in the USA. As probability-based online panels are being used by scientific institutions to collect data and make inferences about the target population, questions about the quality of such da...

This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics...

The process of globalization and, consequently, the increasing cross-border flow of goods, labour forces, information and knowledge, as well as the integration of different countries into the world economy, are accompanied by the development of special communication practices in the international context. Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Rus...