Volunteering is seen as an effective way to address a wide range of issues that are present in modern societies, in particular in rural areas. In order to gain insight into the current state of volunteering, a survey was carried out with the aim of providing an inventory of the digitalisation of volunteering and addressing the influence of spatiality in this context. This article examines the traditional data collection methods of surveys that have been used in the past to collect information on volunteering and presents a different sampling procedure based on a random sample of municipalities, due to insufficient …

This study examined the effects of advance letters on individual participation in the 2018 round of the European Social Survey in Ireland. As participation rates in household surveys have been in decline in many countries, understanding the impact of engagement strategies, such as prior contact, are crucial for fieldwork planning and overall quality of data collection. Based on a natural experiment, we assessed the likelihood of individuals to take part in the survey comparing those who have received an advance letter with those who did not receive it. Contrary to previous evidence on the effectiveness of prior contact, our results …

Questionnaire development, evaluation, and pretesting research is critical for ensuring that survey questions, materials, and data collection procedures produce the highest quality data possible. Interviewer-administered cognitive interviews is a common pretesting method used to collect rich, qualitative data. As technology has advanced, researchers can conduct similar research online in self-administered modes (Behr 2016), allowing for pretesting with larger samples. Each approach has strengths and limitations that researchers can leverage to address their pretesting goals. This research presents a multi-study, iterative project using traditional and online pretesting to evaluate new confidentiality language. Study 1 used traditional cognitive interviews to collect information …

Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa (misSA) in Germany are disproportionally affected by HIV. To develop targeted interventions, it is necessary to collect data on knowledge, attitudes, behaviour and practices (KABP) regarding HIV and sexual health. However, misSA are difficult to reach and to sample: a) it is unknown how many people with an African migration background are living in Germany, and b) HIV and sexual health topics are highly stigmatized in these communities. We utilized a community-based participatory health research approach to develop a study protocol and conducted a KABP survey on HIV and sexual health among misSA in six German …