Survey Design and Quality During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany: An Assessment With 686 Social Science Surveys

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a high demand for readily available but also reliable survey data. Overall, a comprehensive assessment of how survey data were collected and what their quality was remains missing. In this study, we provide a multi-dimensional quality assessment of social science surveys conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany (N=686). We assess survey quality based on three dimensions: accuracy (proxied by survey design), interpretability (referring to the quality of documentation), and accessibility of data (referring to the timely publication of results and data). Our results show that surveys varied considerably in these three quality dimensions over time. We found that surveys followed different purposes at different times of the pandemic: whereas early surveys focused on quickly producing results and traded other aspects of survey quality for this goal, later surveys were more focused on operating better-designed surveys and producing shareable data.