Panel Recruitment Experiment 2022
FORS Connect is an opt-in experimental panel primarily used internally at FORS for the purpose of question testing and methodological innovation. It is maintained by the Data Collection and Analysis Team at FORS. I was responsible for designing FORS Connect, in the context of a major Panel Recruitment Experiment embedded in a survey on Internet, technology and privacy in the time of COVID-19 (n=10,000 in French-speaking Switzerland) conducted in 2022, investigating effects of the pandemic on data privacy concerns and their relation to willingness to participate in digital data collection. The experiment tested effects of different survey design choices on participation and subsequent willingness to join the panel, including: inviting people ‘upfront’ in the survey invitation versus using a ‘piggyback’ approach (inviting respondents at the end of the survey); framing the invitation as a ‘smartphone panel’ versus a regular ‘online panel’; and setting a deadline for participation (versus no deadline).
In a separate experiment, we tested effects of providing a long data privacy notice versus a simplified leaflet (versus a link to a detailed policy online) on willingness to consent and participate.
Collaborators: Marc Asensio Manjon (UNIL), Nicolas Pekari, Max Felder, and Oliver Lipps (FORS).
Outputs
Publications in preparation. Please check back soon!
- Roberts, C., Asensio, M., Lipps, O., and Pekari, N. (2023). To what extent do data privacy concerns and digital distrust act as barriers to smartphone sensor data collection in general population surveys and what can be done to mitigate them? Paper presented at the 10th Conference of the European Survey Research Association, Milan, Italy, 17th-21st July 2023.
- Roberts, C.,Asensio Manjon, M., Pekari, N., and Felder, M. (2022). Optimising methods of recruitment to a smartphone panel study: Do efforts to reduce privacy concerns improve stated willingness to agree to sensor data collection? Paper presented at the Mobile Apps and Sensors in Surveys Workshop, Utrecht, June 16-17, 2022.
Data Donations Experiment 2022
In wave 3 of FORS Connect, I collaborated with Marc Asensio Manjon (UNIL) and Oriol Bosch (LSE/ Oxford University) on the design of an experiment testing alternative methods of requesting/ providing ‘data donations’ about smartphone use. A sample of 875 panellists with smartphones was asked to donate data registered in the Digital Wellbeing and Screen Time settings of their smartphone on time spent using different apps and number of screen unlocks. Methods compared were: multiple screen shots, screen video recordings and ‘enhanced recall’ (asking respondents to consult their screentime data before responding to questions on their smartphone usage). Different levels of incentive were compared to assess their impact on participation across different subgroups of participant.
Outputs
Publications in preparation. Please check back soon!
- Asensio, M., Bosch, O., and Roberts, C. (2023). What is the best way of collecting data donations? An experiment assessing the feasibility of three data donation approaches to measure smartphone usage. Paper presented at the 10th Conference of the European Survey Research Association, Milan, Italy, 17th-21st July 2023.
- Bosch, O., Asensio, M., and Roberts, C. (2023). Data donations, are they worth the effort? The accuracy and validity of smartphone usage measures computed with self-reports and data donations. Paper presented at the 10th Conference of the European Survey Research Association, Milan, Italy, 17th-21st July 2023.