Data Collection and Analysis

Paper Summary:

The GVU's WWW User Survey is a survey conducted by the Graphics, Visualization, & Usability Center (GVU) of the Georgia Institute of Technology. The survey has been conducted since 1994, with alterations and additions made each year up to the most recent finalized survey, which was completed in 1998. This research project determines information about Internet users and finds out how people are using the Internet. This includes a focus on how people are using the Internet for commerce. This project provides an overview of Internet users, their characteristics, and their behavior on the Web, while also tracing changes over time.

From the Paper:

"The author of the research project notes that as a web survey the problem of respondents self-selecting themselves exists (Gupta 1995). The author admits that this problem exists and that it is serious, but concludes that it is not fatal. The author also notes that self-selection applies equally to other methods of collecting data, with the bias removed because it is understood and able to be accounted for and corrected. The author also suggests that the results of the research have similarities consistent with non-Web surveys. As the author states, "the predominance of well-educated, young, affluent males has been noted in other surveys too" (Gupta 1995). This similarity is used as a basis for suggesting that the problem of self-selection occurs only to the same degree in the Web research as it does in non-Web surveys. The problem with this suggestion is that this is being based on one minor similarity, which is not enough to determine that the two survey methods have similar levels of self-selection occurring. To solve this validity problem, the survey must determine the extent to which self-selection impacts on the results as compared to non-Web based surveys. This information could be provided by designing a research project specifically to achieve this comparison."

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