Mode Effects on In-Person and Internet Surveys: A Comparison of the General Social Survey and Knowledge Network Surveys

A series of experiments have been carried out comparing the 2002-2006 General Social Survey with data collected from the Web-enabled Knowledge Networks Panel surveys. First, the results indicate that the level of don’t knows are highly contingent on format and layout. It is possible, however, to design in-person and web-surveys to produce similar and comparable levels of item on-response. Second, the substantive distributions are not statistically different across modes for the majority of items. Third, statistically significant and substantively large mode effects do appear for an appreciable minority of items. These differences probably relate to the different demand characteristics of an interviewer-administered vs. self/computer administered survey. In particular, social-desirability and impression management dynamics are quite different across the two modes and may account for much of the differences.