search query: @author Sparrow, N. / total: 5
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Author: | Sparrow, N. |
Title: | Developing reliable online polls |
Journal: | International Journal of Market Research
2006 : VOL. 48:6, p. 659-680 |
Index terms: | consumer behaviour opinion polls attitudes Internet telephone interviews |
Language: | eng |
Abstract: | Opinion polls (hereafter as: pls.) are used by the media, government, and political parties to measure public attitudes, helping to shape policy proposals etc. Online pls. have an increasing share of the market, despite the obvious drawbacks of relatively low Internet penetration and the fact that they rely on panels of willing participants. It is shown in the paper that while telephone (as: tph.) pls. provide answers similar to those obtained from large-scale random surveys, there are some sharp differences in results obtained online. It is shown that these differences cannot be removed by weighting by demographics, newspaper readership or by using attitudinal variables. However, uncovered is evidence of significant and disturbing mode effects. Particularly, a growing band of professional online panel members seem to race through online surveys, giving responses explaining a good measure of the differences btw. online and tph. research. The findings suggest that the online research industry needs to devise methods to ensure online respondents carefully considering their answers etc. |
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