Can internet surveys represent the entire population? A practitioners’ analysis

Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Lisa Simon, Katharina Werner and Ludger Woessmann

European Journal of Political Economy, 2023, vol. 78, issue C

Abstract: A general concern with the representativeness of internet surveys is that they exclude the “offline” population that does not use the internet. We run a large-scale opinion survey with (1) onliners in internet-survey mode, (2) offliners in face-to-face mode, and (3) internet users in face-to-face mode. We find marked response differences between onliners and offliners in different modes (1 vs. 2). Response differences between onliners and offliners in the same face-to-face mode (2 vs. 3) disappear when controlling for background characteristics, indicating mode effects rather than unobserved population differences. Differences in background characteristics of onliners in the two modes (1 vs. 3) indicate that mode effects partly reflect sampling differences. In our setting, re-weighting online-survey observations appears a pragmatic solution when aiming at representativeness for the entire population.

Keywords: Internet survey; Representativeness; Mode effects; Offliner; Public opinion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 D91 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:78:y:2023:i:c:s0176268023000265

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2023.102382

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