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To minimise nonresponse bias most large-scale social surveys undertake nonresponse weighting. Traditional nonresponse weights adjust for demographic information only. This paper assesses the effect and added value of weights based on fieldwork process data in the European Social Survey (ESS). The reduction of relative nonresponse bias in estimates of political activism, trust, happiness and human values was examined. The effects of process, frame and post-stratification weights, as well as of weights combining several data sources, were examined. The findings demonstrate that process weights add explanatory power to nonresponse bias adjustments. Combined demographic and process weights were most successful at removing nonresponse bias.

Abstract
Whether respondents pay adequate attention to a questionnaire has long been of concern to survey researchers. In this study, we measure respondents' attention with an instruction manipulation check. We investigate which respondents read question texts of experimentally varied lengths and which become inattentive in a probability-based online panel of the German population. We find that respondent attention is closely linked to text length. Individual response speed is strongly correlated with respondent attention, but a fixed cutoff time is unsuitable as a standalone attention indicator. Differing levels of attention are also associated with respondents' age, gender, education, panel experience, and the device used to complete the survey. Removal of inattentive respondents is thus likely to result in a biased remaining sample. Instead, questions should be curtailed to encourage respondents of different backgrounds and abilities to read them attentively and provide optimized answers.

Recent years have seen a growing number of studies investigating the accuracy of nonprobability online panels; however, response quality in nonprobability online panels has not yet received much attention. To fill this gap, we investigate response quality in a comprehensive study of seven nonprobability online panels and three probability-based online panels with identical fieldwork periods and questionnaires in Germany. Three response quality indicators typically associated with survey satisficing are assessed: straight-lining in grid questions, item nonresponse, and midpoint selection in visual design experiments. Our results show that there is significantly more straight-lining in the nonprobability online panels than in the probability-based online panels. However, contrary to our expectations, there is no generalizable difference between nonprobability online panels and probability-based online panels with respect to item nonresponse. Finally, neither respondents in nonprobability online panels nor respondents in probability-based online panels are significantly affected by the visual design of the midpoint of the answer scale.

The ease at which online paradata can be captured in web surveys seems to increase social researchers' desire to collect such data. Yet little attention is paid to whether respondents actually approve of their collection. This article, therefore, studies online survey respondents' acceptance of automatically collecting their geographical locations. In wave 4 of the German Internet Panel, we asked respondents for their consent to automatically track their location using a JavaScript. Respondents were also asked to report their location in a set of traditional survey questions. About 62 percent of respondents consented to the automated collection of their location whereas 97 percent provided their location manually. With respect to consent biases, we find evidence that the composition of the achieved sample of geo-located respondents is biased and that the personal characteristics associated with respondents' willingness to be geo-located differ between the automated tracking and manual provision of geo-information.

Recent years have seen a growing number of studies investigating the accuracy of nonprobability online panels; however, response quality in nonprobability online panels has not yet received much attention. To fill this gap, we investigate response quality in a comprehensive study of seven nonprobability online panels and three probability-based online panels with identical fieldwork periods and questionnaires in Germany. Three response quality indicators typically associated with survey satisficing are assessed: straight-lining in grid questions, item nonresponse, and midpoint selection in visual design experiments. Our results show that there is significantly more straight-lining in the nonprobability online panels than in the probability-based online panels. However, contrary to our expectations, there is no generalizable difference between nonprobability online panels and probability-based online panels with respect to item nonresponse. Finally, neither respondents in nonprobability online panels nor respondents in probability-based online panels are significantly affected by the visual design of the midpoint of the answer scale.

Interviewer effects are found across all types of interviewer-mediated surveys crossing disciplines and countries. While studies describing interviewer effects are manifold, identifying characteristics explaining these effects has proven difficult due to a lack of data on the interviewers. This paper proposes a conceptual framework of interviewer characteristics for explaining interviewer effects and its operationalization in an interviewer questionnaire. The framework encompasses four dimensions of interviewer characteristics: interviewer attitudes, interviewers' own behaviour, interviewers' experience with measurements, and interviewers' expectations. Our analyses of the data collected from interviewers working on the fourth wave of SHARE Germany show that the above measures distinguish well between interviewers.