Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of the online data collection method to survey adolescents about their psychological characteristics in a follow up-longitudinal study on positive youth development in order to test the psychometric equivalence of two assessment methods. 1030 participants (17–19 years old) completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires in schools (505 boys and 525 girls), 132 (28 boys and 104 girls) completed Internet-based questionnaires, and 47 (15 boys 32 girls) completed both, measuring positive development indicators. The findings suggest that adolescents report less socially desirable behaviour and active citizenship in Internet-based questionnaires, but generally Internet-based administration does not have any differences in the means values of positive development indicators as compared to paper-and-pencil administration. Internet-based questionnaires have higher or similar internal consistencies as compared with paper-and-pencil questionnaires and are highly correlated with each other when administered using Internet-based and paper-and-pencil assessment. There is no interaction effect of the Internet versus paper-and-pencil assessment and the sex of adolescents on the positive development indicators. Limitations of this study are discussed.
Highlights
Students and researchers have become increasingly comfortable with the Internet, and many of them are interested in using the Internet-based questionnaires to collect data
The data used for this particular study are from an ongoing longitudinal Positive Youth Development (PYD) study that examines the mechanisms and processes through which young people develop their competences from adolescence to young adulthood
In order to access children who had been absent from school during the data collection or living in other cities or abroad, another invitation to participate in the study was sent to the whole sample via e-mail. In addition to those who had completed the questionnaire for the first time, because they had been absent during the initial data collection, there were 50 subjects that completed the questionnaire using paper and pencil in school and completed the online version. This provided a possibility to analyze the differences of positive development indicators between the two forms of administration in the two independent samples and two dependent samples
Summary
Students and researchers have become increasingly comfortable with the Internet, and many of them are interested in using the Internet-based questionnaires to collect data. This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of online data collection as an alternative to paper-andpencil assessment, with particular reference to the conduct of a longitudinal study on the positive development indicators, involving upper secondary school students in Lithuania. Collecting research data through traditional paper-and-pencil methods can be costly and time-consuming. This becomes extremely difficult in longitudinal studies focused on transitions from adolescence to early adulthood for follow-up, as participants move both from school or their parents’ house and to other cities in the same country or abroad. Conducting Internet-based surveys is an alternative that appears to have the potential, and is already used world-wide (Yun and Trumbo, 2000) to collect large amounts of data efficiently and economically within relatively short time frames
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