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Julia Witton
- Foto
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- Name
- Julia Witton
Cohort
BGSS Generation 2024
Title
Current title: "Video-Interviewing as Part of a Targeted Multi-Mode Design in Household Panel Surveys"
Supervisor
Prof. Dr. habil. Sabine Zinn, Acting Director of the German Socio-Economic Panel study Research Infrastructure (SOEP) and Division Head Survey Methodology and Management of the SOEP at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)
Abstract
To maintain survey participation and data quality, survey research must shift from one–size–fits–all solutions to data collection strategies that account for people’s communication habits, skills, and preferences. Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) was long considered the gold standard data collection mode in survey research. However, with declining response rates, rising costs, and diverging preferences, enhanced survey modes are needed. Computer-Assisted Web-Interviewing (CAWI) was shown to be a useful and cost-effective supplement, but for many applications including household surveys, it is not a suitable replacement. Given the growing prevalence of videoconferencing, Computer-Assisted Live Video Interviewing (CALVI) offers a new alternative. CALVI allows interviewers to assist respondents without being on-site, ensuring data completeness and quality, while accelerating fieldwork and reducing costs. Nevertheless, evidence regarding CALVI’s impact in longitudinal studies is limited. For my thesis, I explore the circumstances, extent, and demographic subgroups for which CALVI should be implemented, including examining potential nonresponse biases. My overarching research question is: To what extent can introducing CALVI into an existing household panel add value in terms of cost-reduction, data quality improvements and sample representativeness? The project has three goals: 1) to test and optimize CALVI in a mixed-mode household panel survey, 2) to explore the potentials and challenges of recording video interviews for data quality assessments and enhancements of the survey setting, and 3) to develop a targeted multimode survey strategy incorporating CALVI, CAPI, and CAWI to maximize response rates, sample representativeness, and data quality within a fixed budget. These goals will be achieved by means of three experiments during the 2024 and 2025 data collection waves of the Socio-Economic Panel’s Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS).