Kirill A. Gavrilov. Effect of Acquaintanceship in Formation of Online Survey invitations: an Empirical Study

Abstract

In our study we analyze the influence of two factors on the acceptance of an invitation to participate in an online survey among university students. The first factor is the acquaintanceship with the invitation initiator, the second — the professional solidarity of sociology students (when they are invited by a sociologist). We used a sample of 253 second-year students from two faculties of the Higher School of Economics. The overall response rate was 49%. ANOVA showed a significant effect for the acquaintanceship with the invitation initiator factor: if the request was from a familiar lecturer the response rate is 58%, whereas if the request came from an unknown person, the rate is 44%. At the same time the effect of the professional solidarity factor was not observed.