Using Google Maps and Google Street View to Validate Interviewer Observations and Predict Non-response: A Test Case

Abstract

Researchers have been looking for easily accessible and straightforwardly useable paradata and auxiliary data to improve survey data. Lately, there is also attention for the evaluation and validation of this external data, such as the assessment of the quality of interviewer-generated paradata. For these purposes, we investigated how useful Google Street View can be as auxiliary data and whether it allows us to assess the quality of interviewer observations on the houses and neighbourhoods of sample units. Additionally, we test whether Google Maps can inform us about the reachability of sample units and which data can predict non-response better. Although it is rather simple to use Google Maps and Street View in daily life, using it to code auxiliary data for surveys is more challenging than expected. Hence, this paper also offers a thorough discussion of the pitfalls of coding these auxiliary data as well as their current solutions.