Using e-surveys in Malaysia to modernise data collection in short-term economic surveys1

Abstract

Response rates, data quality and data confidentiality were identified as the critical success factors in Malaysia’s short-term economic survey. According to the facts, the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) has outlined a few initiatives in its strategic plan (2011–2015) and transformation plan (2016–2020) over the past ten years to improve and modernise data collection, processing and dissemination methods. This paper presents the practices of two DOSM short-term economic surveys i.e the monthly manufacturing survey (MM) and the quarterly construction survey (QCS) to raise the response rate, enhance data quality and manage data confidentiality by e-survey. The factors influences the participation of the MM and QCS e-survey are discussed. This empirical study shows that the response rates of the both short-term surveys have improved through the e-survey. Comparison of data received by various survey modes also indicated that the e-survey provides the best prospects for reducing non-sampling error and protecting data against unintentional disclosure.