Simon Kühne

Gewichtung und Integration von Auffrischungsstichproben am Beispiel des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP)

In prospektiven Panelstudien wie dem Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP) gibt es im Grundsatz zwei Argumente, die eine Integration von neuen Stichproben sinnvoll erscheinen lassen. Zum einen sollen diese neuen Stichproben, die ab der zweiten Welle gezogen und in die laufende Stichprobe der ersten Welle integriert werden, ausgefallene Untersuchungseinheiten ersetzen.

Big changes before big birthdays? Panel data provide no evidence of end-of-decade crises

Alter and Hershfield (1) argue that individuals search for meaning and change attitudes as well as behavior when approaching a new decade in chronological age. Using diverse data on the meaningfulness of life (studies 1 and 2 in ref. 1), search for extramarital affairs (study 3 in ref. 1), suicide rates (study 4 in ref. 1), marathon running times and age at first marathon (studies 5 and 6 in ref. 1), the authors found significant differences in attitudes and behavior between 9-enders—that is, adults facing the end of an age decade (e.g., 29 or 39)—and non–9-enders.

Personalized feedback in web surveys: Does it affect respondents motivation and data quality?

Web surveys technically allow providing feedback to the respondents based on their previous responses. This personalized feedback may increase respondents’ motivation and possibly the accuracy of responses. While past studies mainly concentrate on the effects of providing study results on future response rates, thus far survey research lacks theoretical and empirical contributions on the effects of personalized, immediate, feedback on response behavior. To test this, we implemented a randomized trial in the context of the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) in 2014, providing feedback regarding the respondents’ personality tests (Big Five Personality Inventory) to a subgroup of the sample. Results show only moderate differences in response behavior between experimental and control groups. However, we find that respondents who received personalized feedback report higher levels of satisfaction with the survey.