ESRA 2027 sessions by theme
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Transitioning to Self-Completion Modes of Data Collection in Social Surveys |
| Coordinator 1 | Dr Olga Li (Polish Academy of Sciences) |
| Coordinator 2 | Professor Olga Maslovskaya (University of Southampton) |
| Coordinator 3 | Professor Christof Wolf (GESIS Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences and University Mannheim) |
| Coordinator 4 | Dr Micheál Collins (University College Dublin) |
Session Details
Across Europe, many long-standing social survey programmes are moving from interviewer-administered to self-completion modes of data collection. This transition is driven by declining response rates, rising fieldwork costs, technological developments, and changing respondent expectations and behaviours. At the same time, it represents one of the most significant methodological changes currently affecting survey research and raises important questions about data quality, measurement, comparability, representation, and inclusion.
This session aims to bring together methodological and empirical research on the transition to self-completion modes of data collection in social surveys. It seeks to foster discussion of the opportunities and challenges associated with this transition by bringing together evidence from ongoing survey programmes, methodological innovations, and practical implementation experiences.
We welcome contributions addressing questionnaire design for self-completion, measurement and mode effects, mixed-mode survey designs and strategies for maintaining comparability over time, operational and cost implications, representativeness, accessibility and inclusivity, and practical experiences from national and cross-national survey infrastructures transitioning to self-completion.
The session is particularly interested in contributions based on comparative European surveys, although studies focusing on individual countries or national surveys are also welcome where they provide broader methodological insights. By bringing together experiences from different surveys, the session aims to advance understanding of how high-quality, inclusive, and comparable social surveys can be maintained during and after the transition to self-completion.
