Replication Data for: Does mode of administration impact on quality of data? Comparing a traditional survey versus an online survey via a Voting Advice Application

This dataset (in .csv format), accompanying codebook and replication code serve as supplement to a study titled: “Does the mode of administration impact on quality of data? Comparing a traditional survey versus an online survey via a Voting Advice Application” submitted for publication to the journal: “Survey Research Methods”). The study involved comparisons of responses to two near-identical questionnaires administered via a traditional survey and through a Voting Advice Application (VAA) both designed for and administered during the pre-electoral period of the Cypriot Presidential Elections of 2013. The offline dataset consisted of questionnaires collected from 818 individuals whose participation was elicited through door-to-door stratified random sampling with replacement of individuals who could not be contacted. The strata were designed to take into account the regional population density, gender, age and whether the area was urban or rural. Offline participants completed a pen-and-paper questionnaire version of the VAA in a self-completing capacity, although the person administering the questionnaire remained present throughout. The online dataset involved responses from 10,241 VAA users who completed the Choose4Cyprus VAA. Voting Advice Applications are online platforms that provide voting recommendations to users based on their closeness to political parties after they declare their agreement or disagreement on a number of policy statements. VAA users freely visited the VAA website and completed the relevant questionnaire in a self-completing capacity. The two modes of administration (online and offline) involved respondents completing a series of supplementary questions (demographics, ideological affinity & political orientation [e.g. vote in the previous election]) prior to the main questionnaire consisting of 35 and 30 policy-related Likert-type items for the offline and online mode respectively. The dataset includes all 30 policy items that were common between the two modes, although only the first 19 (q1:q19) appeared in the same order and in the same position in the two questionnaires; as such, all analyses reported in the article were conducted using these 19 items only. The phrasing of the questions was identical for the two modes and is described per variable in the attached codebook.