Annette Jäckle, Alexander Wenz, Jonathan Burton, Mick P. Couper
Increasing participation in a mobile app study: The effects of a sequential mixed-mode design and in-interview invitation

Understanding Society Working Paper
17 S.
,
Colchester
,
Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex
,
2019

In this paper we examine two potential ways of increasing participation in app-based data collection: 1) inviting respondents to the mobile app study within an interview rather than by post, and 2) offering a browser-based alternative to the mobile app. We use experimental data from Spending Study 2, collected on the Understanding Society Innovation Panel and on an online access panel managed by Lightspeed UK. The results suggest that inviting respondents to an app study within a face-to-face interview increases participation, but does not bring in different types of participants. In contrast the browser-based alternative can both increase participation and reduce biases in who participates.