Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 31, Issue 1, January 2006, Pages 162-168
Addictive Behaviors

Short communication
Comparison of Web and mail surveys for studying secondary consequences associated with substance use: Evidence for minimal mode effects

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2005.04.018Get rights and content

Abstract

Objectives

The present study examined the impact of using a Web survey vs. a more traditional mail survey on the reporting of secondary consequences associated with substance use by undergraduate students.

Methods

During the spring of 2001, a survey questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected sample of 7000 undergraduate students attending a large Midwestern research university in the United States. Sampled students were randomly assigned to a Web survey mode (n = 3500) or a mail survey mode (n = 3500).

Results

The majority of respondents experienced a secondary consequence of substance use in the past 12 months. Bivariate and multivariate results showed minimal differences between Web and mail survey modes in the reporting of secondary consequences associated with substance use.

Conclusions

The present study provides evidence that Web surveys can be used as an effective mode for collecting data regarding secondary consequences among undergraduate college students. The present study suggests secondary consequences associated with substance use are highly prevalent among undergraduate students.

Introduction

Increasingly, Web surveys are being used on college campuses for collecting data on a wide range of health-related topics, including alcohol and other drug use (e.g., Bason, 2000, Kypri & Gallagher, 2003, Miller et al., 2002). Recent studies have highlighted some advantages of using Web surveys for collecting survey data among college students such as higher response rates, enhanced completion rates, and reduction of costs and turnaround time without compromising the integrity of the data (e.g., Carini, et al., 2003, Kypri & Gallagher, 2003, Miller et al., 2002, Pealer et al., 2001, Wygant & Lindorf, 2001).

To date, college-based mode studies have found minimal differences in the substantive responses between Web and mail surveys (Bason, 2000, Kypri et al., 2004, Pealer et al., 2001). Past randomized mode experiments found that Web and mail surveys generated similar reports of alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and illicit drug use among college students (Bason, 2000, Miller et al., 2002). However, no survey mode studies focus on secondary consequences experienced by those in proximity to the user, such as sleep disturbance, vandalism, and physical attacks (e.g., Presley et al., 1996, Wechsler et al., 1995).

The present experiment was designed to: a) compare substantive responses between respondents randomly assigned to two different survey modes, and b) examine subgroup (e.g., gender, race, etc.) differences between the responses provided by the two different survey modes. We proposed the following (null) hypothesis: When undergraduates describe their experiences with the secondary consequences of substance use, there will be no differences between the responses given in a Web survey or a mail survey.

Section snippets

Study population and data collection

The present study was fielded for a 1-month period during March and April of 2001. The University's Institutional Review Board approved the study's protocol and informed consent was provided by all participants. At the time of data collection, the total undergraduate population was 21,055 full-time students (10,732 women and 10,323 men). A sample of 7000 undergraduate students was randomly drawn from the Registrar's list, which included e-mail addresses, mailing addresses, gender, class year,

Results

Bivariate results suggest that mode of survey administration made little difference in estimates of secondary consequences. Table 2 illustrates the distribution of secondary consequences between survey modes for the sample as a whole, and for men and women separately. There were no significant mode differences within the overall sample in the reporting of secondary consequences. When bivariate analyses were conducted separately by gender we found no significant differences with the exception of

Discussion

The present study's findings demonstrate minimal substantive differences in results from Web and paper surveys regarding secondary consequences associated with substance use. Our findings highlight the possible benefits identified in prior studies of Web surveys in college student populations. For example, the Web survey yielded a substantially higher response rate and a sample more similar to the population on key demographics than the mail survey.

In addition, the findings of this study

Acknowledgements

The development of this manuscript was supported by the University of Michigan and by a National Research Service Award T32 DA 07267 (PI: C. Boyd) to Drs. McCabe and Cranford from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health.

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