In The Netherlands, a comparison of an online and a face-to-face sample of car drivers was made to study differences on a number of selected questions from the SARTRE-4 road safety survey. Contrary to expectations, there was no indication that online respondents were more likely to come from higher educated or more privileged social groups. Confirming earlier research, the results indicated that online respondents were less inclined to give socially desirable answers and were less inclined to use more extreme ratings in their opinions about measures. Contrary to expectations, face-to-face respondents did not tend to give more positive answers in judgment of road safety measures. Weighting to make samples comparable on gender, age, and education had almost no effect on outcomes. The implications for a transition from face-to-face survey to online panel method are discussed. (Author/publisher)
Abstract