Internet of Things: Cognitive Online-Pretest - October-November 2018

Abstract

The Pretest lab of GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (Germany) was assigned the task to pretest a module on the Internet of Things (IoT) to be included, if deemed appropriate, in future waves of the Community Survey on ICT Use in Households and by lndividuals conducted by the European Commission. The aim of the cognitive pretest was to optimize the questions prior to their potential administration in the actual survey and thereby to improve data quality. The inclusion of a module on IoT in the Community Survey on ICT Use in Households and by lndividuals is of interest to DG CNECT in order to monitor the evolution and adoption of recent technological solutions in this domain. GESIS tested an English and a German version of the module with British and German respondents (n=120) in a web survey. In total, respondents received open and closed probes for four items. Some of the items do not need to be changed but the results indicate for a few questions that the answer op-tions, the question order, or the German translations need to be improved. The pretest report includes recommendation to further refine the questions of the module.