Adaptive survey design has attracted great interest in recent years, but the number of case studies describing actual implementation is still thin. Reasons for this may be the gap between survey methodology and data collection, practical complications in differentiating effort across sample units and lack of flexibility of survey case management systems. Currently, adaptive survey design is a standard option in redesigns of person and household surveys at Statistics Netherlands and it has been implemented for the Dutch Health survey in 2018. In this article, the implementation of static adaptive survey designs is described and motivated with a focus on practical feasibility.
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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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In the literature about web survey methodology, significant e orts have been made to understand the role of time-invariant factors (e.g. gender, education and marital status) in (non-)response mechanisms. Time-invariant factors alone, however, cannot account for most variations in (non-)responses, especially fluctuations of response rates over time. This observation inspires us to investigate the counterpart of time-invariant factors, namely time-varying factors and the potential role they play in web survey (non-)response. Specifically, we study the effects of time, weather and societal trends (derived from Google Trends data) on the daily (non-)response patterns of the 2016 and 2017 Dutch Health Surveys. Using discrete-time survival analysis, we find, among others, that weekends, holidays, pleasant weather, disease outbreaks and terrorism salience are associated with fewer responses. Furthermore, we show that using these variables alone achieves satisfactory prediction accuracy of both daily and cumulative response rates when the trained model is applied to future unseen data. This approach has the further benefit of requiring only non-personal contextual information and thus involving no privacy issues. We discuss the implications of the study for survey research and data collection.
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To improve people’s lives, human-computer interaction researchers are increasingly designing technological solutions based on behavior change theory, such as social comparison theory (SCT). However, how researchers operationalize such a theory as a design remains largely unclear. One way to clarify this methodological step is to clearly state which functional elements of a design are aimed at operationalizing a specific behavior change theory construct to evaluate if such aims were successful. In this article, we investigate how the operationalization of functional elements of theories and designs can be more easily conveyed. First, we present a scoping review of the literature to determine the state of operationalizations of SCT as behavior change designs. Second, we introduce a new tool to facilitate the operationalization process. We term the tool blueprints. A blueprint explicates essential functional elements of a behavior change theory by describing it in relation to necessary and sufficient building blocks incorporated in a design. We describe the process of developing a blueprint for SCT. Last, we illustrate how the blueprint can be used during the design refinement and reflection process.
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This study examines completion rate for a self-assessment survey designed to assess employees' digital skills levels in the workplace. The aim is to improve data quality by investigating completion of the survey. The study reviews the theoretical background related to self-assessment surveys and completion rate, and explores the influence of survey length and format in survey design on completion rate. The research design and data analysis are described in detail, with a focus on identifying factors that may influence completion rate. Results suggest that survey designers should consider using Likert scales to optimize completion rate and completion time. However, this study did not find a significant increase in completion rate as a result of motivation, which was claimed from the literature. The study concludes with implications for the design and implementation of self-assessment surveys in the workplace, including the importance of reducing length and complexity of survey items and questions.
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Although Item Response Theory (IRT) has been recommended for helping advance interprofessional education (IPE) research, its use remains limited. This may be partly explained by potential misconceptions regarding IRT`s “limitation” to cross-sectional data. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how Item Response Theory (IRT) can be applied effectively in before-and-after designs in IPE research. Specifically, a two-week before-after design with survey methodology using the Extended Professional Identity Scale (EPIS), an interprofessional identity measure, was conducted among n = 146 mixed health-science students. Results indicated that EPIS increased significantly before-after intervention by.74 standardised mean differences, t146 = 7.73, p
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At a time when the population is ageing and most people choose to live in their own home for as long as possible, it is important to consider various aspects of supportive and comfortable environments for housing. This study, conducted in South Australia, aims to provide information about the links between the type of housing in which older people live, the weather and occupants’ heating and cooling behaviours as well as their health and well-being. The study used a Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system to survey 250 people aged 65 years and over who lived in their own home. The respondents were recruited from three regions representing the three climate zones in South Australia: semi-arid, warm temperate and temperate. The results show that while the majority of respondents reported being in good health, many lived in dwellings with minimal shading and no wall insulation and appeared to rely on the use of heaters and coolers to achieve thermally comfortable conditions. Concerns over the cost of heating and cooling were shared among the majority of respondents and particularly among people with low incomes. Findings from this study highlight the importance of providing information to older people, carers, designers and policy makers about the interrelationships between weather, housing design, heating and cooling behaviours, thermal comfort, energy use and health and well-being, in order to support older people to age in place independently and healthily. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2019.03.023 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jvhoof1980/
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Having its origins in the 1970s and being fielded on a large scale for the first time in 1981, the European Values Study is one of the longest existing ongoing survey data collection projects. Its core aim is to map the values, beliefs, and attitudes that people living in the various European countries hold in important spheres of their private and social lives. This entry provides an overview of the goals and research design of this unique survey project and its historical development. It concludes with a discussion of the project's value for sociological research on human values structures and for advancing our knowledge of what Europeans ideationally have in common and what separates them.
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Art therapy is widely used and effective in the treatment of patients diagnosed with Personality Disorders (PDs). Current psychotherapeutic approaches may benefit from this additional therapy to improve their efficacy. But what is the patient perspective upon this therapy? This study explored perceived benefits of art therapy for patients with PDs to let the valuable perspective of patients be taken into account. Using a quantitative survey study over 3 months (N = 528), GLM repeated measures and overall hierarchical regression analyses showed that the majority of the patients reported quite a lot of benefit from art therapy (mean 3.70 on a 5-point Likert scale), primarily in emotional and social functioning. The improvements are concentrated in specific target goals of which the five highest scoring goals affected were: expression of emotions, improved (more stable/positive) self-image, making own choices/autonomy, recognition of, insight in, and changing of personal patterns of feelings, behaviors and thoughts and dealing with own limitations and/or vulnerability. Patients made it clear that they perceived these target areas as having been affected by art therapy and said so at both moments in time, with a higher score after 3 months. The extent of the perceived benefits is highly dependent for patients on factors such as a non-judgmental attitude on the part of the therapist, feeling that they are taken seriously, being given sufficient freedom of expression but at the same time being offered sufficient structure and an adequate basis. Age, gender, and diagnosis cluster did not predict the magnitude of perceived benefits. Art therapy provides equal advantages to a broad target group, and so this form of therapy can be broadly indicated. The experienced benefits and the increase over time was primarily associated with the degree to which patients perceive that they can give meaningful expression to feelings in their artwork. This provides an indication for the extent of the benefits a person can experience and can also serve as a clear guiding principle for interventions by the art therapist.
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In the Netherlands, palliative care is provided by generalist healthcare professionals (HCPs) if possible and by palliative care specialists if necessary. However, it still needs to be clarifed what specialist expertise entails, what specialized care consists of, and which training or work experience is needed to become a palliative care special‑ist. In addition to generalists and specialists, ‘experts’ in palliative care are recognized within the nursing and medical professions, but it is unclear how these three roles relate. This study aims to explore how HCPs working in palliative care describe themselves in terms of generalist, specialist, and expert and how this self-description is related to their work experience and education. Methods A cross-sectional open online survey with both pre-structured and open-ended questions among HCPs who provide palliative care. Analyses were done using descriptive statistics and by deductive thematic coding of open-ended questions. Results Eight hundred ffty-four HCPs flled out the survey; 74% received additional training, and 79% had more than fve years of working experience in palliative care. Based on working experience, 17% describe themselves as a generalist, 34% as a specialist, and 44% as an expert. Almost three out of four HCPs attributed their level of expertise on both their education and their working experience. Self-described specialists/experts had more working experience in palliative care, often had additional training, attended to more patients with palliative care needs, and were more often physicians as compared to generalists. A deductive analysis of the open questions revealed the similarities and dis‑ tinctions between the roles of a specialist and an expert. Seventy-six percent of the respondents mentioned the impor‑tance of having both specialists and experts and wished more clarity about what defnes a specialist or an expert, how to become one, and when you need them. In practice, both roles were used interchangeably. Competencies for the specialist/expert role consist of consulting, leadership, and understanding the importance of collaboration. Conclusions Although the grounds on which HCPs describe themselves as generalist, specialist, or experts difer, HCPs who describe themselves as specialists or experts mostly do so based on both their post-graduate education and their work experience. HCPs fnd it important to have specialists and experts in palliative care in addition to gen‑eralists and indicate more clarity about (the requirements for) these three roles is needed.
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