They are very easy to delete.

You may start the survey and quit before completed if they are too long or take to long to move from one question to the next.

Thanks Laverne. That's an excellent point. I appreciate your input.

As you might guess, this is a topic susceptible to research, so I suggest that you take a look at some of the research available.

In general, the issues really depend on your survey and audience. Online surveys are ideal for branching (which is hard to do via paper - skip to item 11e, below). They aren't great if you are surveying a population (or a portion of your selected population) that isn't comfortable with technology or doesn't have access to technology or the internet - if that applies to your work, use a paper survey or a mixed approach (send paper survey with option to take online, or send online survey information with option to request a paper survey). Some research shows that differences between respondent results that are noted when respondents are allowed to self-select the format.

If your audience has visual impairments, a paper survey may be better. If you are physically mailing the survey, you may find better results with a paper survey (although see prior comment on mixed approaches, which can also keep costs down). On the other hand, if you are surveying subjects in a research setting, the costs of providing computers or tablets for the subjects to use to complete the surveys may be far more than the cost of photocopies and data entry.

Subjects typically respond better to paper surveys when the questions are lengthy or complex - people prefer succinct questions in an online format, and are likely to abandon more when faced with large blocks of text on-screen (even if the mode of answer is simple and straight-forward). In a related note, the completion rate of lengthy (many questions, not long questions) online surveys can be improved by warning participants of the average length of time to complete the survey, and providing feedback on completion progress.

I hope that helps; without knowing more about the circumstances, it's hard to be more specific.

Thanks, Todd. That information helps a great deal. There seems to be circumstances when a paper survey is better depending on the audience, topic, and type of questions. Much appreciated.

To me, the biggest disadvantage of online surveys is that they can never be truly anonymous.  A paper survey can be filled out and stuffed into a box without any way for anybody to definitively match a particular participant to the data, so it’s helpful for ethical reasons when we would like to survey on a particularly sensitive topic (e.g., illegal behavior, embarrassing responses that could impact career or family life).  Even if online surveys don’t record identifying information, there’s always some way with IP addresses and time-stamps that we (or more likely authorities) could figure out identities.  But for most studies that are fairly innocuous, online surveys have many advantages, like participants can be anywhere with internet access and no data entry errors.

Every one do not have technical skills and/or willingness to participate in online surveys.

Perhaps there is no disadvantage of online survey rather it has so many advantages.

With best regards

Dear Paul Stock Sir,

Please have a look at these useful links.

Article Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Surveys: Introducti...

http://www.schonlau.net/publication/02fieldmethods.pdf

https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1160&context=jate

Regards

In my experience, low response rate is one of the main disadvantages of using an online survey.

I think the reliability of the results is the most important flaw that accompanies the online surveying.

• Limited sampling and respondent availability.  Certain populations are less likely to have internet access and to respond to online questionnaires.  It is also harder to draw probability samples based on e-mail addresses or website visitations.
• Possible cooperation problems.  Although online surveys in many fields can attain response rates equal to or slightly higher than that of traditional modes, internet users today are constantly bombarded by messages and can easily delete your advances.
• No interviewer.  A lack of a trained interviewer to clarify and probe can possibly lead to less reliable data

https://blog.cvent.com/events/advantages-disadvantages-online-surveys/

Regards.

Dear Mr. Stock,

Hello there,

Please, take a look at the PDF file which has been enclosed to this message. I think that it could b helpful for you!

Good luck!

Ali

There are a lot of disadvantages of online survey. They are as follows: It is not possible to get appropriate answer of open-ended questions and it is not possible to reach the most challenging people. Apart from, respondent don't feel importance of online survey that is why he or she does not pay great attention to reply and generally provides misinformation and so on.

There are certainly occasions not to use online surveys, or at least to mix data collection modes, but visual impairment, needing to use open-ends, and anonymity don't seem among them.

Visually-impaired computer/device users have contrast and font size options/screen readers/TTS apps, open-ends can be asked very robustly on line (data quality is often higher, given an interesting question) and modern apps allow the option to hide IPs and other identifying variables from the dataset while users are well-aware that unique click-throughs are identifiable. Other methods more often connote uncertain anonymity, the kind that mediates response rates.

Of course, visual impairment prevalence rises with age, and if you are looking for robust cross-SES elderly representation, you will want to mix methods irrespective of vision.

As anyone who completes online surveys knows, many of their warts, such as speeding, breakoffs, irritation, trigger-clicking, etc. are caused by poor questionnaire design and/or programming, not the mode of data collection.

Similarly, satisficing to get through/get something/avoid reminders is common to all modes. So whatever your mode(s) of administration, start with answerable, relevant, personalized, engaging questions that adjust to the respondent's context in real time, and you're halfway home.

The following papers may further help, namely: a detailed chart/elaborations of the pros and cons of online surveys (see: Duffy et al, 2005, pp. 617-618; Evans and Mathur, 2005, pp. 199-201).

• Bowers, D. K. (1998) FAQs on online research, Marketing Research, 10, 4, pp. 45-47.
• Duffy, B., Smith, K., Terhanian, G. and Bremer, J. (2005) Comparing data from online and face-to-face surveys, International Journal of Market Research, 47, 6, pp. 615-639.
• Evans, J. R. and Mathur, A. (2005) The value of online surveys, Internet research, 15, 2, pp. 195-219.
• Ilieva, J., Baron, S. and Healey, N., M. (2002) Online surveys in marketing research: Pros and cons, International Journal of Market Research, 44, 3, pp. 361-381.
• Seymour, W. S. (2001) In the flesh or online? Exploring qualitative research methodologies, Qualitative Research, 1, 2, pp. 147-168.

Algunas de las desventajas de las encuestas en línea son :

• La principal desventaja de las encuestas por internet tiene que ver con el problema para localizar muestras representativas, lo que se debe especialmente a dificultades en cuanto a cobertura, que vienen dadas por el hecho de que no todas las personas tienen acceso a internet. Sin embargo, distintas investigaciones desarrolladas a través de la red han afirmado que, gracias a la rapidez con la que más usuarios se han ido acoplando al uso de internet, es posible que, en muy poco tiempo, todo el mundo pueda acceder a él.
• A pesar de que el uso de recursos audiovisuales interactivos se plantea como una de las ventajas de este tipo de encuestas, es más bien un arma de doble filo, ya que la facilidad y rapidez de lectura de la información en pantalla puede llevar a que algunos de los entrevistados escaneen el texto en lugar de leerlo de forma detallada, lo que, por supuesto, no resulta para nada favorable cuando se trata de obtener respuestas coherentes y veraces. Por esta razón, es importante cuidar el diseño y la estructura de la encuesta, incorporando preguntas de respuesta corta, que sean concisas y que se presenten de manera clara.
• Las encuestas en línea suponen un incremento de trabajo por parte del entrevistado, debido a que no cuentan con la presencia de un encuestador, lo que, de una u otra forma, puede llegar a afectar la calidad de las respuestas.
• Por último, es importante resaltar que la participación en encuestas en línea no solo requiere de un equipo o dispositivo electrónico, sino que también exige cierto nivel de conocimiento para su manejo, algo que no se evidencia en muchos sectores de la sociedad. Un saludo.

Kenneth Lui-ming Ngie could you possibly suggest more recent literature kindly?

Hopefully the following publications could help:

• Evans, J. R. and Mathur, A. (2018) The value of online surveys: a look back and a look ahead. Internet Research, 27, 4, pp. 854-887.
• Nayak, M. S. D. P. and Narayan, K. A. (2019) Strengths and Weakness of Online Surveys, Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 24, 5, pp. 31-38.
• Prathap, D. P., Premavathi, R. and Ramasubramanian, M. (2010) The Feasibility of Conducting Online Surveys, Indian Journal of Adult Education, 71, 3, pp. 5-17.
• Singh, A., Taneja, A. and Mangalaraj, G. (2009) Creating online surveys: Some wisdom from the trenches tutorial, IEEE transactions on Professional Communication, 52, 2, pp. 197-212.
• Sue, V. M. and Ritter, L. A. (2007) Conducting Online Surveys. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.

some times lose subjectivity.Masking may happen,