Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research

CHAPTER 7

Decisions, Observations, and Considerations for Developing a Mobile Survey App and Panel

David Roe, Yuying Zhang, and Michael Keating,

RTI International

Survey research has had to adapt to advances in technology and changes in society. From the development of telephone interviewing as a supplement, and later an alternative, to mail and face-to-face interviewing, to web surveys, to the inclusion of cell phones in random digit dial (RDD) surveys, the field of survey research has worked to determine the best uses of new technology. Now, researchers find themselves in the midst of another wave of change that they must work to understand fully and use: mobile data collection. The landscape of survey research is changing drastically as a result of advances in mobile technologies and increased accessibility.

In addition to improvements in coverage, speed, functionality, and computing power, smartphone applications (apps) offer a robust set of features to researchers. Understanding the art of capturing data via mobile surveys, specifically via applications, will be an important task that the survey research industry must address.

In the past 3 years, survey research has addressed the evolution of mobile devices and the impact of smartphones. However, most early studies focused on how to handle users accessing existing surveys on mobile devices, not on how to deliver the surveys, that is, via a mobile web browser or some type of application. Initial research focused on mode effects, ...