Respondent-Provided Auxiliary Data Instead of Survey Questions in a Web Survey |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Jennifer Sinibaldi (US Census Bureau) |
| Coordinator 2 | Ms Renee Stepler (US Census Bureau) |
In household surveys, respondents are often asked about information that they have to (or could) look up in their records or other sources. US Census Bureau surveys, for example, ask about payments for the property’s mortgage, property insurance, monthly utilities, and childcare. These questions are often followed with more detailed questions like periodicity of payment, if certain fees are included, etc. With an interviewer present, the respondent may be more easily convinced to find the relevant records if they don’t know this information. When these questions are asked in a self-administered web survey, a comparable approach could be to ask the respondent to upload the relevant record.
This session aims to share research about respondent-provided auxiliary data from records or similar sources when conducting a web survey. These data can be provided in lieu of or in addition to answering survey questions.
Example types of data include, but are not limited to:
• Mortgage statements
• Utility bills
• Invoices
• Wage / pay statements
• Public assistance payment statements
• CVs or résumés
• Pictures of bar codes, serial numbers, ID cards, etc.
Research questions may include, for example:
• How to ask respondents to provide auxiliary records
• Respondent compliance with the request for auxiliary data
• Experiments comparing the accuracy of survey responses to respondent-provided auxiliary data
• Analyses of respondent-provided auxiliary data to assess the completeness of the data
• Respondent preferences and concerns when providing auxiliary data / records
• Burden reduction studies when respondents provide auxiliary data instead of answering survey questions