ABSTRACT

Statistical theory is essentially based on random probability samples. In social/behavioral research, however, convenience samples and volunteer access panels, where respondents self-select themselves into the sample, still dominate the landscape. Such recruitment strategies are attractive due to their low costs. Yet, recent years have seen increasing debates surrounding their quality. As a consequence, researchers across several countries are working towards representative panels based on ´true´ probability samples.
In this presentation, the GESIS Panel will be presented. The GESIS Panel offers the academic social science community a possibility to collect primary data free of charge within a probability-based omnibus access panel encompassing almost 5000 panelists at the time of recruitment. The data are representative of the German speaking population residing in Germany aged between 18 and 70 years.
It will be described how this infrastructure has been developed, and how academics from various social sciences fields, such as economists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and criminologists at universities or non-commercial research institutes can submit their study proposals. Furthermore, it will also be shown how data collected within the GESIS Panel can be used by academic researchers free of charge, e.g. to conduct secondary research. Further information about the project can be found here: http://www.gesis-panel.org.