Challenges that surveys are facing are increasing data collection costs and declining budgets. During the past years, many surveys at Statistics Netherlands were redesigned to reduce costs and to increase or maintain response rates. From 2018 onwards, adaptive survey design has been applied in several social surveys to produce more accurate statistics within the same budget. In previous years, research has been done into the effect on quality and costs of reducing the use of interviewers in mixed-mode surveys starting with internet observation, followed by telephone or face-to-face observation of internet nonrespondents. Reducing follow-ups can be done in different ways. By using stratified selection of people eligible for follow-up, nonresponse bias may be reduced. The main decisions to be made are how to divide the population into strata and how to compute the allocation probabilities for face-to-face and telephone observation in the different strata. Currently, adaptive survey design is an option in redesigns of social surveys at Statistics Netherlands. In 2018 it has been implemented in the Health Survey and the Public Opinion Survey, in 2019 in the Life Style Monitor and the Leisure Omnibus, in 2021 in the Labour Force Survey, and in 2022 it is planned for the Social Coherence Survey. This paper elaborates on the development of the adaptive survey design for the Labour Force Survey. Attention is paid to the survey design, in particular the sampling design, the data collection constraints, the choice of the strata for the adaptive design, the calculation of follow-up fractions by mode of observation and stratum, the practical implementation of the adaptive design, and the six-month parallel design with corresponding response results.
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The aim of the current study is twofold. First, it investigates the influencing factors of runners' sports apparel value at a running event. Second, the potential value of observational data in the socioeconomic field is investigated, as this study combines data retrieved by a survey and by visually scanning pictures of event runners. The results demonstrate that visual data gathering methods contribute to explaining sports apparel usage and consumption. For example, it is found that runners who wear a shirt of the running event spent less money on their running shoes and overall sports apparel. From a methodological point of view, it is shown that observation leads to no nonresponse and thus corrects for selection bias. Other advantages (e.g., less selection bias, less recall bias, time-efficiency for research subject, potential automatic computer analysis in future) and disadvantages (e.g., technical, labor intensiveness for researcher, privacy) of visual data are discussed.
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This study (re)tests the relationship between planning and transfer success. Previous studies show that planning increases satisfaction, but find no or only weak relations to transfer effectiveness. 76 Dutch SME business owners, who succeeded in the transfer, were surveyed. To improve on previous studies reliable scales were constructed and results were tested for common method bias, social desirable answering and nonresponse. Multi regression analyses indicate that planning and preparation does relate to satisfaction but has no relation with performance. To predict effectiveness of SME transfers both the market and entrepreneurial abilities of the buyer seem more appealing.
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