Public Opinion Quarterly, pp. 1–39 COMPARING THE ACCURACYOF RDD TELEPHONE SURVEYS AND INTERNET SURVEYS CONDUCTED WITH PROBABILITY AND NON-PROBABILITY

Abstract This study assessed the accuracy of telephone and Internet surveys of probability samples and Internet surveys of non-probability samples of American adults by comparing aggregate survey results against benchmarks. The probability sample surveys were consistently more accurate than the non-probability sample surveys, even after post-stratification with demographics. The non-probability sample survey measurements were much more variable in their accuracy, both across measures within a single survey and across surveys with a single measure. Post-stratification improved the overall accuracy of some of the non-probability sample surveys but decreased the overall accuracy of others