IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/eme/aecozz/s0731-905320190000039001.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Can Internet Match High-quality Traditional Surveys? Comparing the Health and Retirement Study and its Online Version

In: The Econometrics of Complex Survey Data

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Angrisani
  • Brian Finley
  • Arie Kapteyn

Abstract

We examine sample characteristics and elicited survey measures of two studies, the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), where interviews are done either in person or by phone, and the Understanding America Study (UAS), where surveys are completed online and a replica of the HRS core questionnaire is administered. By considering variables in various domains, our investigation provides a comprehensive assessment of how Internet data collection compares to more traditional interview modes. We document clear demographic differences between the UAS and HRS samples in terms of age and education. Yet, sample weights correct for these discrepancies and allow one to satisfactorily match population benchmarks as far as key socio- demographic variables are concerned. Comparison of a variety of survey outcomes with population targets shows a strikingly good fit for both the HRS and the UAS. Outcome distributions in the HRS are only marginally closer to population targets than outcome distributions in the UAS. These patterns arise regardless of which variables are used to construct post-stratification weights in the UAS, confirming the robustness of these results. We find little evidence of mode effects when comparing the subjective measures of self-reported health and life satisfaction across interview modes. Specifically, we do not observe very clear primacy or recency effects for either health or life satisfaction. We do observe a significant social desirability effect, driven by the presence of an interviewer, as far as life satisfaction is concerned. By and large, our results suggest that Internet surveys can match high-quality traditional surveys.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Angrisani & Brian Finley & Arie Kapteyn, 2019. "Can Internet Match High-quality Traditional Surveys? Comparing the Health and Retirement Study and its Online Version," Advances in Econometrics, in: The Econometrics of Complex Survey Data, volume 39, pages 3-33, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:aecozz:s0731-905320190000039001
    DOI: 10.1108/S0731-905320190000039001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S0731-905320190000039001/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S0731-905320190000039001/full/epub?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec&title=10.1108/S0731-905320190000039001
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S0731-905320190000039001/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/S0731-905320190000039001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fabrice Kämpfen & Iliana V Kohler & Alberto Ciancio & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Jürgen Maurer & Hans-Peter Kohler, 2020. "Predictors of mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic in the US: Role of economic concerns, health worries and social distancing," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-13, November.
    2. Breen, Liz & Acosta-Gómez, Jaime & Tomlinson, Justine & Medlinskiene, Kristina & Elies-Gomez, Jacobo, 2020. "A preliminary insight into the role and importance of management skills in the prevention of occupational derailment: An exploratory analysis of UK and Spanish pharmacists," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 492-505.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:aecozz:s0731-905320190000039001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.