This review paper provides a summary of literature on participation in data collection using mobile apps as well as results from a series of experiments conducted in the UK Understanding Society Innovation Panel in relation to invitation to various mobile app studies, from expenditure, to well-being, to cognition and to body measurements.
Overall, the results from the experiments are consistent with the literature. Focusing on the participation in app-based studies among the panel respondents, incentives offered mixed results; personalized feedback has no effect; and placing the invitation to app-based studies in earlier part of the survey questionnaires resulted in higher willingness. Contrary to the literature, the length of the tasks on the mobile app had no effect. When the invitation to a spending study was done in person or over a letter, the participation rate was higher among in-person survey participants. The invitation mode did not matter for Web survey participants. The mode of invitation to a body measurement study did not make a difference.
Selection bias was observed: an overrepresentation of younger participants and those with higher education achievements; and a study-specific overrepresentation of those who already use similar mobile apps (e.g., an over-representation of respondents who use health apps in a body measurement app study). Moreover, participation in the app-based studies was correlated with indicators of general survey cooperativeness (e.g., item nonresponse).
