Survey data-collection costs are steadily increasing, forcing
government agencies and survey organizations to consider more costeffective
methods of acquiring high-quality information from respondents.
Web surveys and administrative data linkage are two approaches
often considered to help offset rising costs; however, these two
approaches are rarely used jointly in the same survey. Consequently, little
is known about how one should ask for linkage consent in a web survey
in order to maximize consent rates and minimize the risk of linkage
bias. The lack of an interviewer, who is often responsible for explaining
the rationale and potential benefits associated with the proposed linkage,
poses challenges for phrasing the consent request in a way that
successfully describes to web survey respondents the advantages of
linkage. To investigate this issue, we conducted a wording experiment
that mentioned a particular benefit of linkage for web survey respondents:
reduced questionnaire length and overall time savings. We found
that respondents who received the benefit wording were more likely to
provide linkage consent than respondents who received a more neutral
wording.
