Probabilistic Web survey methodology in education centers: An example in Spanish schools

Resumen

Online surveys are increasingly common due to the myriad benefits they offer over traditional survey methods. One of the habitual inconveniences of Web surveys is that they are not probabilistic and it is not possible to measure the sampling error. This paper presents a probabilistic Web methodology to carry out a social study in a population distributed in education centers that have “multimedia” classrooms, with computers with connection to internet. The sampling design is probabilistic, and easy and cheap to implement. In addition, the proportion of a lack of answers concerning the required sample size is practically worthless, as it is only the one originated by the elimination of the answers of individuals in the filtration of the database. As an example of the application of the said methodology, we introduce the social study “Survey on the future perspectives of the students studying in high school in the district of the University of Valladolid” carried out in the year 2013 on a population of 11,276 high school students distributed in four provinces of Castilla y León (Spain).