Issues of Adaptive Automated Surveys in a Computer Network Environment

Network surveys hold great promise for information and data gathering, and would allow almost instantaneous access to large and diverse populations. Although there is a mature literature on survey methodology in other media, little is known about how networks might interact with survey processes or impact response accuracy. ALPHATECH proposes to analyze existing survey literature to identify critical issues whose resolution is necessary to develop technology to perform effective, adaptive, automated surveys over computer networks. This analysis will identify what is applicable or generalizable to network surveys and where there are gaps needing to be filled. We will also develop principles of adaptive surveys-surveys packaged with special software (e.g., Java applets) that monitors the respondents' behavior and controls the survey accordingly. We propose a research program that will address gaps in our current knowledge, test our adaptive procedures, and validate the new network survey technology. As a prologue to this empirical work, a pilot study will be conducted to resolve some motivational and presentation issues and provide experience to refine the experiments to be conducted in Phase II. Also in Phase II, software will be developed to implement our new validated methodology to conduct adaptive, automated surveys over networks. The research and development that we propose to undertake in Phase I and continue in Phase II will provide a reliable and valid methodology, in an easy-to-use software package, that will allow the user to reap the many benefits of using a computer network to perform surveys