News
14 September 2022
The findings from an experiment that linked Understanding Society Innovation Panel members’ survey data to their social media data on LinkedIn have recently been published as part of the Understanding Society Innovation Panel wave 14 report. The experiment was designed by Curtis Jessop, Research Director of NatCen Panel, with colleagues from the Universities of Essex and Cardiff.
10 August 2022
Article: The Role of the Interviewer in Producing Mode Effects: Results From a Mixed Modes Experiment Comparing Face-to-Face, Telephone and Web Administration. This article was co-authored by Gerry Nicolaas, Director of Methods at NatCen, and it explores the role of the interviewer, the differences between interviewer modes and the motivation they can provide respondents in generating accurate answers and/or reducing task difficulty.
26 July 2022
Blog: Qualitative research...just a sum of its parts? Written by Mehul Kotecha, Senior Researcher.
12 July 2022
The GenPopWeb2 network has published its final report “Transitioning from Interviewer-Administered Surveys to Online Data Collection: Experiences, Challenges and Opportunities” (PDF). Gerry Nicolaas, Director of Methods, co-authored this report with collaborators from the University of Southampton, UCL, and ONS.
12 July 2022
The GenPopWeb2 network has published the “Within-household selection for push-to-web surveys” report (PDF). This report is authored by Gerry Nicolaas, Director of Methods, using the NatCen led consortium report for the National Survey for Wales as its source (PDF).
28 June 2022
Mari Toomse-Smith, Director of Health and Biomedical Surveys, Kirsty Cole, Research Director in Longitudinal Surveys, and Carole Sanchez from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at UCL presented as part of the City-ESS HQ-NatCen Survey Methodology Seminar Series. Their presentation titled “Video-interviewing: An effective way of conducting surveys?” discussed their experiences of video-interviewing on studies such as BCS70, NCDS, HSE and NatSal.
13 June 2022
Gerry Nicolaas, Director of Methods, and Laura Johnson, Director of the Centre for Health Research will be leading sessions at MethodsCon, NCRM's wholly in-person event on the 13–14 September. Gerry will lead an interactive session Mind the gap: survey statistics in practice. Laura will lead a professional development workshop "Alexa, I just ate a donut." Innovations in recalls and real-time methods for measuring eating.
8 June 2022
Gerry Nicolaas, our Director of Methods, was a guest on the European Survey Research Association podcast. Gerry discussed the current and future cost of surveys along with Joost Kappelhof, Netherlands Institute for Social Research, and presenter Vera Toepoel, Statistics Netherlands and Chair of the European Survey Research Association.
8 June 2022
Anne Conolly, Research Director, and Soazig Clifton, Research Director, along with other collaborators from UCL, London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of Glasgow, and Ipsos Mori authored a research note on Natsal-COVID Wave 2 methodology. The paper is currently under open peer-review.
23 May 2022
Anne Conolly, Research Director, presented her work on the National Survey on Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) at the Royal Statistical Society. The presentation is titled “Participant-collected biological samples in social surveys: the feasibility of vaginal swab collection”.
10 May 2022
Gerry Nicolaas, Director of Methods, was a discussant at the Royal Statistical Society in-person event: Using social surveys to measure population Covid-19 and antibody prevalence. Gerry discussed the strengths and weaknesses of using surveys such as REACT and the COVID-19 Infection Survey to measure COVID-19 and anti-bodies prevalence. Presentations were given by Ruth Studley from ONS and Nick Gilby from Ipsos MORI.
04 May 2022
Guy Goodwin, Chief Executive at NatCen, spoke at the third SDC-net meeting on “Data Quality – finding a new normal”. Guy made a plea to the SDC-network for methodological leadership and investment, focusing on what surveys will look like in 2030 and how to get there. Other speakers included Rachel Skentelbery (Deputy Director, ONS) and Mary Gregory (Deputy Director, Office for Statistics Regulation). Information about SDC-net and upcoming events can be found on the NCRM website.
2 Feb 2022
The SDC-Net hosted its second event focused on computer-assisted video-interviewing (CAVI) and knock-to-nudge methods during the pandemic. Information about this and upcoming events can be found on the NCRM website.
27 Jan 2022
The Centre for Social Survey Transformation launched with Peter Cornick and Shanna Christie presenting NatCen’s REMoDEL approach to social survey transformation. Rewatch the event on the NatCen YouTube channel.
27 Jan 2022
In this blog, our colleagues share their experience of online questionnaire testing and how our approach during the pandemic changed. This blog provides a summary of a presentation given at a GenPopWeb2 event held in September 2021.
17 Dec 2021
Back in November 2021 Director of Methods Gerry Nicolaas presented at the Cathie Marsh memorial lecture. The lecture discussed gold standard surveys post-Covid and the value of social surveys such as the Covid-19 Infection Survey during the pandemic. Watch the recording on YouTube.
17 Sept 2021
The GenPopWeb2 network is hosting the final event in its series on COVID-19 and transitioning to online data collection in social surveys. The free virtual event, at 15:00 on 17 September, will comprise four presentations from experts who will showcase current evidence, experiences and approaches.
10 June 2021
Research Director Curtis Jessop has a new paper on linking Twitter and survey data, examining the amount of social media data available to link to surveys. The paper is based on research funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, involving colleagues at the Universities of Cardiff, Essex and Mannheim (Germany).
19 Feb 2021
GenPopWeb2 is an ESRC-funded network of UK-based academic and non-academic partners to share knowledge and collaborate in the area of online data collection in social surveys. The network is led by Olga Maslovskaya (University of Southampton), Lisa Calderwood (UCL), Laura Wilson (ONS) and Gerry Nicolaas (NatCen).
15 Jan 2021
NEW BLOG: Natasha Phillips, researcher in the Methodology & Innovation Hub and questionnaire design expert, discusses how video interviewing has proved to be an excellent option for testing questionnaires during the pandemic, and one that can be utilised alongside more conventional modes now and in the future.
13 Jan 2021
The latest edition of the SRA journal Social Research Practice includes an article looking at How should we present ‘don’t know’ options in self-completion surveys? Lessons from three experiments (pdf), co-authored by Bernard Steen.
12 Jan 2021
Our Director of NatCen Learning, Debbie Collins, has written a quick start guide for the NCRM on planning to teach social research methods online - guiding principles. Find out more about the online courses that NatCen Learning can offer.