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Research into the best practice for testing questionnaires used to obtain survey data from establishments (businesses and other organisations) is largely the province of official statistics, and has developed more slowly than the corresponding procedures in household surveys. Nonetheless, establishment survey questionnaire design and testing procedures are now supported by a substantial literature, and we use this to review the background and approaches to development and testing of questionnaires. The key points are summarised in a series of recommendations, primarily targeted at the production of official statistics. We then report a survey of National Statistical Institutes which gathered information on the penetration of these practices into standard survey design procedures, and identified some of the characteristics of these methods as they are implemented. We conclude with an assessment of the levels of maturity in application of these approaches.

Smartphone sensors allow measurement of phenomena that are difficult or impossible to capture via self-report (e.g., geographical movement, physical activity). Sensors can reduce respondent burden by eliminating survey questions and improve measurement accuracy by replacing/augmenting self-reports. However, if respondents who are not willing to collect sensor data differ on critical attributes from those who are, the results can be biased. Research on the mechanisms of willingness to collect sensor data mostly comes from (nonprobability) online panels and is hypothetical (i.e., asks participants about the likelihood of participation in a sensor-based study). In a cross-sectional general population randomized experiment, we investigate how features of the request and respondent characteristics influence willingness to share (WTS) and actually sharing smartphone-sensor data. We manipulate the request to either mention or not mention (1) how participation will benefit the participant, (2) participants' autonomy over data collection, and (3) that data will be kept confidential. We assess nonparticipation bias using the administrative records. WTS and actually sharing varies by sensor task, participants' autonomy over data sharing, their smartphone skills, level of privacy concerns, and attitudes toward surveys. Fewer people agree to share photos and a video than geolocation, but all who agreed to share photos or a video actually did. Some nonresponse and nonparticipation biases are substantial and make each other worse, but others jointly reduce the overall bias. Our findings suggest that sensor-data-sharing decisions depend on sample members' situation when asked to share and the nature of the sensor task rather than the sensor type.

Smartphone sensors allow measurement of phenomena that are difficult or impossible to capture via self-report (e.g., geographical movement, physical activity). Sensors can reduce respondent burden by eliminating survey questions and improve measurement accuracy by replacing/augmenting self-reports. However, if respondents who are not willing to collect sensor data differ on critical attributes from those who are, the results can be biased. Research on the mechanisms of willingness to collect sensor data mostly comes from (nonprobability) online panels and is hypothetical (i.e., asks participants about the likelihood of participation in a sensor-based study). In a cross-sectional general population randomized experiment, we investigate how features of the request and respondent characteristics influence willingness to share (WTS) and actually sharing smartphone-sensor data. We manipulate the request to either mention or not mention (1) how participation will benefit the participant, (2) participants' autonomy over data collection, and (3) that data will be kept confidential. We assess nonparticipation bias using the administrative records. WTS and actually sharing varies by sensor task, participants' autonomy over data sharing, their smartphone skills, level of privacy concerns, and attitudes toward surveys. Fewer people agree to share photos and a video than geolocation, but all who agreed to share photos or a video actually did. Some nonresponse and nonparticipation biases are substantial and make each other worse, but others jointly reduce the overall bias. Our findings suggest that sensor-data-sharing decisions depend on sample members' situation when asked to share and the nature of the sensor task rather than the sensor type.

This study investigates how an auto-forward design, where respondents navigate through a web survey automatically, affects response times and navigation behavior in a long mixed-device web survey. We embedded an experiment in a health survey administered to the general population in The Netherlands to test the auto-forward design against a manual-forward design. Analyses are based on detailed paradata that keep track of the respondents' behavior in navigating the survey. We find that an auto-forward design decreases comple­tion times and that questions on pages with automated navigation are answered significant­ly faster compared to questions on pages with manual navigation. However, we also find that respondents use the navigation buttons more in the auto-forward condition compared to the manual-forward condition, largely canceling out the reduction in survey duration. Furthermore, we also find that the answer options 'I don't know' and 'I rather not say' are used just as often in the auto-forward condition as in the manual-forward condition, indi­cating no differences in satisficing behavior. We conclude that auto-forwarding can be used to reduce completing times, but we also advice to carefully consider mixing manual and auto-forwarding within a survey.

In Zeiten abnehmender Ressourcen ist die Effizienz von statistischen Informationen von herausragender Bedeutung. Die "Statistics Netherlands" (SN) haben daher die "Structural Business Statistics" (SBS) mit verändertem Design überarbeitet und im Jahr 1998 ein Projekt mit dem Ziel begonnen, die Datengewinnung, Datenaufbereitung und Veröffentlichung der SBS zu integrieren und zu standardisieren. Dieses Projekt, das mittlerweile unter der Bezeichnung IMPECT ("Implementation of the Economical Transformation Process") bekannt ist, hat sich in jüngster Zeit vor allem der Evaluation und Verbesserung der Inhalte von Befragungen gewidmet. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird ein Überblick über die Ziele und Strategien einer geplanten Evaluation von fast 200 Fragebögen unterschiedlicher Wirtschaftsbranchen gegeben. (ICI)