Web-based surveys as an alternative to traditional mail methods

Frontiers in Environmental Science, 2022

Apart from many social and economic problems worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to sudden halt in face-to-face climate-related meetings. Moreover, it has also negatively influenced the works related to the preparations for the sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and organizing the 26th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), namely COP26 to be held in Glasgow, which was postponed to November 2021. This article presents a global study undertaken among UNFCCC contact points and other climate experts, to ascertain the impacts of the pandemic on the implementation of SDG13 and UNFCCC processes. The methodological approach entails an bibliometric analysis, online survey, and authors’ expert judgment. Results of the bibliometric analysis show that the most common terms associated with this theme are COVID-19, climate change, CO2, energy, “pandemic-related,” and “adaptation-related.” In addi...

Animals, 2021

The SARS-CoV2 pandemic forced an abrupt interruption of social contacts and interpersonal affective relationships all over the world, according to national directives. Many considerable inconveniences occurred with important repercussions also on the emotional state of people and their pets. We carried out a national survey to evaluate the human-dog relationship in a social isolation context using an adapted version of Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale, the perception of the dogs’ discomfort by their human owners, and the resilience of the dog through the quantification of symptoms, in time of the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results highlighted that the human-dog interaction was similar during quarantine; however, there was lower owner’s perception of a dog’s cost during the quarantine than before it.

Tourism Economics, 2015

In Australia, as in many other parts of the world, open access is the default policy setting for most protected natural areas, including World Heritage sites. This is despite considerable evidence that unrestrained levels of visitation can be unsustainable in terms of impact on the environment and recreational experience. This paper seeks to answer two questions: First, to what extent are visitors willing to forego access to publicly owned protected natural areas in order to ensure less crowding and/or better environmental outcomes? And second, if access were restricted, how would visitors like remaining access rights to be allocated? Results show that visitors are, in general, willing to trade off some degree of access rights for better environmental outcomes and reduced crowding; particularly the former. It is clear that peak pricing is not supported, whereas visitor caps have broad support.

Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies

The research was aimed at identifying and empirically investigating the factors influencing the adoption of e-business in SMEs of Saudi Arabia. The Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework was complemented with the individual context elements to develop the conceptual model for the present study. The framework was developed based on the two-pronged strategy: an extant literature review and a focus group interview with panel of experts. Subsequently, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted, and data from 111 SMEs were collected. The researchers tested the model and related hypotheses, employing multiple regression analysis. The results indicate that the firm size, competitive pressure, entrepreneur’s innovativeness, and IT savviness significantly influence the e-business adoption in SMEs. The findings and conclusions of the study, as well the future research prospects, are discussed.

Cogent Food & Agriculture, 2017

During an online survey, respondents were randomly assigned to a choice experiment for either pork chops or chicken breasts and were then explicitly asked which attributes they did not consider while making their choices. A simple validation question, which directed respondents to choose a specific answer, was also included. Accounting for either stated or inferred attribute non-attendance alone had no statistically significant effect on willingness-to-Pay (WTP) estimates. Those who passed the validation question had statistically significant and higher WTP for some attributes of pork chops and chicken breasts when the variable was interacted with inferred or stated attribute non-attendance (ANA). While use of a validation question appears promising, more research is needed on this point before it can be concluded that ANA alone has no impact on the WTP estimates for food choice experiments.

Land, 2022

Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, tourist destinations have been increasingly selected on the basis of health, safety and social distancing criteria. In this framework, protected natural areas represent ideal tourist destinations due to the presence of wide and open spaces, services for tourists and attention to nature. The present paper focused on accessible tourism, a subset of sustainable tourism that is increasingly gaining greater importance within the tourism sector. By applying the Contingent Valuation Method, the study investigated whether potential tourists are effectively willing to pay extra money to be granted more accessible facilities in a natural area. To this end, a logit model was estimated to determine the probability that tourists exhibit a higher WTP for accessible tourism facilities. The analysis was carried out in the Gargano National Park, Southern Italy, an area traditionally characterised by large tourist flows that have increased further during the recen...

Water International, 2018

This article analyzes the relationship between perceived service quality and averting behaviours and averting expenditures across prominent water service attributes, using revealed preference survey data from New Zealand water supply customers. It finds that nearly 50% of consumers undertake averting behaviours, investing substantial amounts in improving their water service quality. Unexpectedly, lower-income households were more likely to undertake averting behaviours for the same perceived service quality, and spent more in their averting behaviours. This suggests that the burden of low-quality service is greater on lower-income households, not only relative to income but in absolute terms.

Advancing Educational Research With Emerging Technology, 2020

Web-based surveys and web-based interviews are useful techniques to collect data through the web in educational research. In addition, web activities such as blogging, searching, and web mining have become quite convenient to collect and extract data from the web for research purposes. The purposes of this chapter are to describe and discuss techniques and tools for collecting and extracting data from the web for educational research purposes. First, a survey and a web-based or online survey are described and explained with examples. Second, web-based or online interviews, which are often similar to the face-to-face interview protocols are discussed and exemplified. After presenting the synchronous and asynchronous online interview tools, the selection criteria of the online interviewing tools are discussed. Lastly, this chapter describes and discusses web activities such as blogging, searching, and web mining to collect and extract data from the web.

Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 2014

Consumer preferences for four livestock products were investigated to determine consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for livestock production process attributes. We use an inferred method of attribute nonattendance (ANA) using the coefficient of variation on individual specific parameter estimates to assess the variability of preference intensity for various product characteristics. We find that accounting for ANA did not significantly impact mean estimates of WTP. Implications of our findings on the reliability of existing work in the area of consumer preferences for animal welfare attributes are discussed.