Design issues in collecting Design issues in collecting the data on Ego-Centered the data on Ego-Centered

Social Networks on the WebSocial Networks on the Web

Gašper Koren, Valentina Hlebec,

Vasja Vehovar, and Katja Lozar Manfreda

[Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana]

RC33 - Sixth International Conference on Social Science Methodology

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, August 20th 2004

Presentation outline

1. Aim of the study

2. Collecting data on ego-centered social

networks

3. Data collection

4. Results

5. Conclusions

6. Further research

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Aim of the studyTo test some relevant methodological issues for collecting data on complex issues with self-administered survey methods (Web Survey):

1. Influence of graphical design

2. Way of collecting data on repeating

questions

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EGO

Vesna

Gašper

TinaPete

r

Mark Vasja

Katja

Network Generator

• Emotional support (Burt, 1984 )

• One out of four types of social support (Cohen and Wills, 1985)

“From time to time, most people discuss important personal matters with other people, for instance if they have problems at work, at

university, with partner or parents or other similar situations. Who are the people with

whom you discuss personal matters that are important to you?“

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Data collectionJuly - October 2001

• RIS – Research on Internet in Slovenia Web Survey • Over 14.000 respondents• 1009/631 respondents answerd on module about interpersonal relationships

Survey I.

August - September 2003

• Special Survey on Social Networks• 291/261 respondents

Survey II.

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Survey I. (2001)• 631 valid respondents

• 4 different network generators (measuring 4 different types of social support), 1 graphical design

• Ego should answer 11 questions for every listed alter (alter-vise questioning)

• 2 different types of question instructions (question wording)

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Survey II. (2003)• 261 valid respondents

• 1 network generator, 3 different graphical designs (10 n.s., 5 n.s., 1 n.s.)

• 2 ways of collecting data on alters

(alter-vise vs. variable-vise)

• short (5) vs. long questionaire (11)

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Network composition

Network sizeSubstantive results

Time needed

Drop-out

Item-missing data

Non-valid responses

Data quality

Alter- vs. variable-vise

(Study 2)

Number of alters (Studies 1, 2)

Instructions(Study 1)Effect on results

Name interpreterName generator

Web questionnaire design

Data analysis

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Non-valid response I.• Non-valid responses:

o Names in plural (»family«, »friends«, etc.), o suspicios fake names (for example, Jaka

Racman and Pajo Patak – caracters from cartoons),

o the same entry several times, o entries such as »/«, o more than one name in each space

• Overall they are rare

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Non-valid response II.

Survey II. NO YES Total

f 184 14 198 Yes

% 92,9 7,1 100 f 83 9 92

Use internet every day?

No % 90,2 9,8 100

f 267 23 290 Total

% 92,1 7,9 100

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Non-valid response III.

Invalid response NO YES

Total

f 88 2 90 10 name spaces % 97,8 2,2 100

f 82 6 88 5 name spaces % 93,2 6,8 100

f 98 15 113

Type

1 name space % 86,7 13,3 100

f 268 23 291 Total

% 92,1 7,9 100

p=0.013

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Item missing data

N Min % Max % Mean % Std.

Alter-vise TOTAL 128 0 0,57 0,10 0,15 Alter-vise LONG 67 0 0,57 0,08 0,13

Alter-vise SHORT 61 0 0,50 0,13 0,17

Variable-vise TOTAL 133 0 0,93 0,13 0,12 Variable-vise LONG 65 0,02 0,93 0,11 0,15

Variable-vise SHORT 68 0 0,75 0,14 0,09

(5 q)

(5 q)

(11 q)

(11 q)

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Number of listed alters I.

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Shorter

Longer

Survey I. (2001)• graphical design with 30 name spaces• varying instructions (long vs. short)

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Number of listed alters II.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

30 name spaces

10 name spaces

30 name spaces | 10 name spacesmax 30 13mean 6.4 4.66

Heaping

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Number of listed alters III.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

10 name spaces

5 name spaces

10 name spaces | 5 name spacesmax 13 14mean 4.66 4.06

p = 0.1

Heaping

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Number of listed alters IV.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

5 name spaces

1 name space

5 name spaces | 1 name spacesmax 14 16mean 4.06 3.15

p = 0.01

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Average number of completed name interpreters (Survey I.)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29

Shorter instructions

Longer instructions

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Average number of completed name interpreters (Survey II.)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

alter-vise

variable-vise

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Conclusions I.• Web data collection mode can be used for

collecting ego-centered data, however one should be aware of all disadvantages of this data collection mode

• Invalid response are rare (but they still exist!)

• Item-missing data are on average around 10%, regardless the way of collecting the data

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Conclusions II.• Graphical design is highly suggestive

• Design with one name space per screen give the network size, which is closest to other survey modes (telephone, face-to-face)

• On the other hand it has more invalid responses!

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Further research• How-to reduce number of additional

questions on alters (reducing the respondent burden) without reducing qualitiy of collected data

• Time needed for each type of answering questionaitre (Alter-vise vs. Variable-vise)

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University of LjubljanaFaculty of Social Sciences

http://www.websm.org/

http://www.ris.org/

http://www.fdv.uni-lj.si/