Using Live Video Interviews for Difficult Questionnaires on Social Networks

Collecting survey data via live video interviewing is a relatively new methodology, which received increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic when contact restrictions and ethical considerations rendered face-to-face interviewing unfeasible. While many surveys switched from face-to-face interviews to online self-administration, this approach was unsuitable for complex questionnaires requiring interviewer assistance to guide respondents through the answering process. Our study focuses on the collection of egocentric social network data as an example of such a challenging questionnaire. This process involves respondents providing detailed information on their extensive social networks comprising twenty or more social contacts, including the elicitation of the network members, follow-up questions about those contacts, and questions about their relationships. Due to the high response burden, self-administration can lead to measurement errors such as underreporting network sizes or even respondent dropout. This study is the first to explore the use of live video interviewing for quantitative social network research by investigating three research questions related to nonresponse bias, participation motives, and interview experience. Leveraging a sample drawn from an established German probability panel, we compared a series of relevant measures between participants and nonparticipants at different stages of the participation process. We found significant differences in demographics (i.e., education), personality (i.e., conscientiousness), and attitudes toward surveys between these groups. The main motives for participation were the study’s purpose and topic. Notably, while both respondents and interviewers reported favorable interview experiences, the multi-step participation process, which required potential respondents to schedule an appointment for the interview, resulted in a response rate of only 16.8%. Together, our findings suggest that live video interviewing holds considerable promise as a survey administration mode for egocentric social network research and other applications. However, addressing the challenge of overcoming low response rates remains a priority in future methodological research.