Gummer, Tobias, Karolina von Glasenapp, Thomas Skora, Saskia Bartholomäus, and Elias Naumann. 2025. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Design of Repeated Cross-sectional and Panel Surveys in Germany." International Journal of Public Opinion Research. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edaf062.
The COVID-19 pandemic posed a major challenge for the implementation of population surveys, particularly longitudinal studies such as repeated cross-sectional and panel surveys. Utilizing the metadata of 576 surveys conducted as part of 95 longitudinal survey programs in Germany, the authors show how existing longitudinal surveys differed in their survey collection practices from the newly established longitudinal surveys.
Existing surveys were less likely to implement changes compared to the newly established surveys, except for those existing surveys that relied on face-to-face interviews, which often switched their mode. In contrast, to speed up data collection, the newly established surveys frequently employed survey designs that differed from the high-quality survey designs of existing surveys.