Late Responding in Web and Mail Surveys: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2023.v17i4.8126

Keywords:

late respondents, systematic review, meta-analysis, survey research, web survey, mode effect

Abstract

There is a fundamental concern that respondents who complete a survey with a certain delay or only after one or more additional contact attempts are less motivated to provide high quality survey data. Given the rise of web surveys to being the currently most widely used mode of the survey method, this concern has increased, and surveyors wonder which mode to choose best. With a systematic review and a meta-analytic approach, we clarify types of and issues in “late responding”, and we address the questions of whether and to what extent late responding is different for web surveys compared to mail surveys. The systematic review reveals that only a third of the 74 studies included report on data quality for any type of late responding. Moreover, a wide range of definitions for late responding was identified, with essentially three types. With a meta-analytical approach, a mean share of 27% (CI: 23%–31%) of late responding across both modes was quantified, and no mode difference was found. A moderator analysis with 16 sample and survey characteristics did not identify a robust moderator across modes. In addition, our article provides a detailed overview  of different survey practices used in web and mail surveys.

Author Biographies

Ellen Laupper, iScience Group, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz (Germany) / Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training SFUVET

Ellen Laupper is currently Project Manager R&D at the Evaluation Unit of the Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training SVUFET in Switzerland. At the same time, she is a PhD student at the University of Konstanz at the iScience group of Prof. U.-D. Reips. Her interests lie in evaluation methods with a special focus on the online survey methodology, respondent completion behavior and data quality.

Esther Kaufmann, iScience Group, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz (Germany)

After passing her PHD in 2009, Esther Kaufmann worked at different unitversities e.g., Mannheim, Zürich and since 2020 at the University of Konstanz. Her research interests and focuses are modeling and measuring competencies, teacher judgment accuracy, meta-analysis, online research, test development and test evaluation, and evaluation research.

Ulf-Dietrich Reips, iScience Group, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz (Germany)

Research by Ulf-Dietrich Reips focuses on Internet-based research methodologies (including web surveys), the psychology of the Internet, measurement, experimental methods, personality, privacy, and mobile experience sampling. He was a founder of the German Society for Online Research and has published more than 180 scientific articles and book chapters, six books and four special journal issues, see https://www.uni-konstanz.de/iscience/reips/pubs/publications.html. Serving the research community, Ulf and his team (https://iscience.uni-konstanz.de/) develop and provide free Web tools and apps for researchers, teachers, students, and the public that are available from the iScience Server at https://www.iscience.eu/

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Published

2023-12-22 — Updated on 2023-12-31

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How to Cite

Laupper, E., Kaufmann, E., & Reips, U.-D. (2023). Late Responding in Web and Mail Surveys: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Survey Research Methods, 17(4), 465–491. https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2023.v17i4.8126 (Original work published December 22, 2023)

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