The use of within-subject experiments for estimating measurement effects in mixed-mode surveys

The estimation of measurement effects (MEs) of survey modes in the presence of selection bias poses a great problem to methodologists. We present a new method to estimate MEs by means of “within-subject designs”, in which the same sample is approached by two different modes at two subsequent points in time. The decomposition of mode effects into MEs and selection biases is illustrated for key statistics from the Dutch Crime Victimization Survey using data from a large-scale within-subject experiment conducted within Statistics Netherlands’ project Mode Effects in Social Surveys (abbreviated to MEPS in Dutch).