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Activity Number:
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208
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Type:
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Contributed
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Date/Time:
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Monday, July 30, 2007 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
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Sponsor:
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Section on Survey Research Methods
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| Abstract - #308509 |
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Title:
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Beyond Demographics: Are 'Webographic' Questions Useful for Reducing the Selection Bias in Web Surveys?
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Author(s):
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Matthias Schonlau*+ and Arthur VanSoest and Arie Kapteyn
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Companies:
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RAND Corporation and RAND Corporation and RAND Corporation
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Address:
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4570 Fifth Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213,
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Keywords:
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web survey ; propensity score ; selection bias ; webographic variables ; lifestyle variables
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Abstract:
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The main concern about Web surveys is that inference is affected by non-random selection of web survey participants (selection bias). One approach to reduce selection bias is to use propensity scores and a parallel phone survey. This approach uses demographic and additional so-called webographic or lifestyle variables to balance observed differences between web survey respondents and phone survey respondents. Here we investigate some of the webographic questions used by Harris Interactive, a commercial company specializing in Web surveys. Our webographic questions include choice of activities such as reading, sports and traveling and perceptions about what would constitute a violation of privacy among others. We use data from an existing probability sample representative of the US 50+ population and their spouses (Health and Retirement Study) and a corresponding web survey.
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