Future of Survey Research

When you perform survey research, it's important to get a representative sample. The validity of your research depends on your ability to find and survey such a sample, because the only way to get an accurate estimate of the population is to know that your survey's sample is a representative cut from that population. Online surveys are the primary method of collecting that data, but online surveys have also had a problem – Seniors have generally been less willing to take online surveys, because fewer seniors are online than the rest of the population.

Over the next several decades, there are going to be a higher percentage of seniors than there were in the past, indicating that this may become an even greater problem. If seniors represent a larger portion of the population, than an inability to include them in your sample is going to create issues.

There are a few things that may prevent this from happening. First and foremost, the age group that will become senior citizens has been online for longer, so there is a greater chance that the age group will be less likely to find the Internet intimidating or spend all of their time offline. That alone should reduce the probability that this will affect your data in the future.

Another reason this scenario is unlikely is because those same seniors will have had experience with survey research, not just the Internet, so receiving a survey will seem less intimidating. Interestingly, there is also a trend for seniors that are using the Internet with regularity to sign up for arguably too many surveys, using surveys and incentives as a method of passing the time. Some research has shown that respondents that take too many surveys stop critically thinking and answer surveys on autopilot in a manner that leads to less accurate results.

For opt-in surveys, this could be a serious problem, with seniors over-represented and failing to provide accurate data.

Still, this is all still something that you may need to consider as you plan for the future of your research. There is already starting to be a huge increase in the number of seniors relative to the rest of the population, and that change will bring new challenges that you will need to address if you are going to continue to collect and analyze survey data correctly.