ACCEPTANCE TESTING OF AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE FOR A SELF-COMPLETION APPROACH IN SLOVAKIA
ACCEPTANCE TESTING OF AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE FOR A SELF-COMPLETION APPROACH IN SLOVAKIA

Summary/Abstract: In 2021, the Slovak team of the European Social Survey participated in an acceptance testing of electronic devices that enables respondents to respond in public opinion surveys. So far, face to face or telephone survey modes have been used for data collection. With the development of digitization, most of the survey work has moved to the online space. As a result, respondents without internet access were left outside the reach of survey agencies. Additionally, the approach was tested as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which in several respects affected the implementation of the fieldwork so far implemented in the form of computer assisted personal interviews. The Electronic Questionnaire Device project (EQD) coordinated by NatCen (UK) tested electronic devices (tablets) and collected the feedback from respondents who have no experience with the use of such devices and do not use the Internet. The aim of this paper was to investigate and describe i) initial participants´ reactions to the device; ii) issues related to device usage; iii) willingness of respondents to participate in self-completion surveys again. The findings of the study show up evidence for the overall acceptance of the tested approach. This approach aims to enable participation in a survey to those people who might not have been (approach)able to take part under other circumstances. In general, the participants were open to cooperation, and accepted the option of self-completion. While an acceptance of the device as a tool for the self-completion approach by respondents with low/uncompleted education remains questionable and uncertain, having some previous experience with ICT seemed to help in decreasing the initial stress and tension of the respondent to accept the self-completion option. These findings will, however, require further verification on larger samples of respondents.

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