In hybrid sampling, one part of the sample is processed via an online survey and one part via telephone and/or face-to-face interviews - a procedure that is now common in market research.
Although interviewer-led surveys allow broader segments of the population to be covered, thus achieving a somewhat higher representativeness of the sample, the costs of this type of survey are significantly higher than those of online surveys. Hybrid samples therefore offer a good and cost-attractive alternative.
Online surveys provide good coverage of the Austrian population aged 16-75, among whom Internet use is very high at around 90%. For those over 75, Internet penetration drops to below 60% with a low frequency of use. This means that online surveys only reach a biased sample of people aged 75 and above (those who are tech-savvy) and leave out two-thirds, namely those who do not use the Internet. For this reason, we conduct some of the interviews using the hybrid method by telephone in order to obtain a comprehensively representative picture of the Austrian population. The proportion of telephone interviews is around 20% of the sample.
The online interviews are conducted via the Austrian Onlinepool, which is jointly operated by the two full-service institutes INTEGRAL and SPECTRA. The telephone or face-to-face subsample is collected by our in-house field department.