The GESIS Panel Infrastructure (GPI) encompasses the well-established GESIS Panel Population Sample (GP.pop) and the new GESIS Panel Digital Behavioral Data Sample (GP.dbd) that will be fully operational in Q2 of 2024.
The quarterly fielded GESIS Panel Population Sample is a self-administered probability-based mixed-mode (CAWI and PAPI) panel of the German-speaking adult population permanently residing in Germany with a total sample size of about 5,000 respondents. Established in 2013, it is open to the academic public for primary and secondary research. While about 75% of all respondents participate online, the remaining quarter of our panelists participate in the mail mode (about 1,400 respondents), which we deem important since not everyone in Germany has access to the Internet, the skills to use it, or does want to participate online. The GP.pop pursues a unified mixed-mode design with a mobile-first approach to reduce mode measurement effects. Due to the limitations of the mail mode, we only allow a maximum of four experimental groups per wave. The GP.pop allows the submission of cross-sectional as well as longitudinal studies. It is especially suited for drawing inferences about the general population.
In 2022, GESIS expanded its data collection capabilities by setting up a new data collection infrastructure – the GESIS Panel.dbd Digital Behavioral Data Sample (GP.dbd) – for collecting digital behavioral data (DBD) on the adult German-speaking population that can be linked with survey data. The new infrastructure is expected to be fully operational in Q2 of 2024. Initially, the GP.dbd will focus on recording study participants' web browsing behavior ("web tracking"). For this purpose, GESIS maintains and uses a web browser plugin that records desktop/laptop browser usage at the level of individual website visits. Integrating web tracking data with longitudinal survey data can be considered the gold standard in investigating and explaining online media use and information-seeking behaviors and their effects. Respondents for the GP.dbd will be recruited from non-probabilistic online-based sources, e.g., via advertisements on Facebook and Instagram, but also from high-quality survey programs such as ALLBUS or the GP.pop. We aim to recruit approximately 1,000 participants to join the web tracking data collection. Although the GP.dbd cannot be used to draw inferences about the general population, it allows for sophisticated experiments and innovative collections of web-tracking data.
Click here for information about the innovative methods and tools used by GESIS for collecting digital behavioral data in social science research.
