Web Survey Bibliography
Survey respondents misunderstand questions more frequently than one might expect but, current methods for collecting data make it hard to detect and correct misunderstanding. The conventional practice has been to leave the interpretation of questions up to respondents; interviewers react to requests for clarification with nondirective probes like "Let me repeat the question." The current article reviews a research program that has explored alternatives to standardized wording, in which interviewers and web survey systems can define survey concepts as needed as a way to assure uniform comprehension across respondents. One problem is that many respondents fail to recognize that their understanding is not aligned with the survey sponsors' and so do not ask for clarification - a problem that, we argue, is more serious in the survey response task than other tasks in which information is exchanged. Using today's survey techniques (telephone and face-to-face interviews, web surveys) it is possible to increase respondents' sensitivity to their own misunderstanding, increasing their requests for clarification; and, based on respondents' verbal and visual cues of comprehension difficulty, it is possible to intervene to correct misunderstanding. This approach can be extended in surveys of the future by incorporating mature speech recognition capabilities, modeling respondent uncertainty about question meaning so that when clarification is needed it can be provided automatically, and developing interface agents when appropriate. By evaluating simulated versions of these technologies in the near term researchers will be better able exploit them as they become available.
Journal (full text)
Web survey bibliography - Conrad, F. G. (38)
- Comparing acquiescent and extreme response styles in face-to-face and web surveys; 2017; Liu, M.; Conrad, F. G.; Lee, S.
- Respondent mode choice in a smartphone survey ; 2017; Conrad, F. G., Schober, M. F., Antoun, C., Yan, H. Y., Hupp, A., Johnston, M., Ehlen, P., Vickers, L...
- Effects of Mobile versus PC Web on Survey Response Quality: a Crossover Experiment in a Probability...; 2017; Antoun, C.; Couper, M. P.; G. G.Conrad, F. G.
- Comparisons of Online Recruitment Strategies for Convenience Samples: Craigslist, Google AdWords, Facebook...; 2016; Antoun, C., Zhang, C., Conrad, F. G., Schober, M. F.
- The Effect of Respondent Commitment and Tailored Fe edback on Response Quality in an Online Survey ; 2016; Cibelli Hibben, K.; Conrad, F. G.
- Comprehension and engagement in survey interviews with virtual agents; 2016; Conrad, F. G.; Schober, M. F.; Jans, M.; Orlowski, R. A.; Nielsen, D.; Levenstein, R. M.
- Social Media Analyses for Social Measurement; 2016; Schober, M. F.; Pasek, J.; Guggenheim, L.; Lampe, C.; Conrad, F. G.
- An experiment testing six formats of 101-point rating scales; 2015; Liu, M.; Conrad, F. G.
- Matrix versus paging designs in a brand attribution task; 2014; Conrad, F. G., McCullough, W., Nishimura, R.
- Speeding in Web Surveys: The tendency to answer very fast and its association with straightlining; 2013; Conrad, F. G.; Zhang, Che.
- Disfluencies and Gaze Aversion in Unreliable Responses to Survey Questions; 2012; Schober, M. F., Conrad, F. G., Dijkstra, W., Ongena, Y. P.
- Database Lookup in Web Surveys; 2012; Couper, M. P., Zhang, C., Conrad, F. G., Tourangeau, R.
- Interactive interventions in web surveys can increase response accuracy.; 2011; Conrad, F. G.
- Race-of-Virtual-Interviewer Effects; 2011; Conrad, F. G., Schober, M. F., Nielsen, D.
- Which Web Survey Respondents Are Most Likely to Click for Clarification?; 2011; Coiner, T., Schober, M. F., Conrad, F. G.
- Should I Stay or Should I go: The Effects of Progress Feedback, Promised Task Duration, and Length of...; 2011; Yan, T., Conrad, F. G., Tourangeau, R., Couper, M. P.
- Professional Web Respondents and Data Quality; 2010; Conrad, F. G., Tourangeau, R., Couper, M. P., Zhang, C.
- Increasing Respondents' Use of Definitions in Web Surveys; 2010; Peytchev, A., Conrad, F. G., Couper, M. P., Tourangeau, R.
- Interactive Interventions in Web Surveys Can Increase Respondent Conscientiousness; 2009; Conrad, F. G., Tourangeau, R., Couper, M. P., Kennedy, C.
- Envisioning the Survey Interview of the Future ; 2009; Conrad, F. G., Schober, M. F.
- Experimenting With Speech Interactive Voice Response, Touchtone Data Entry and the Web for the National...; 2009; Cantor, D., Brick, P. D., Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F. G.
- Interactive feedback can improve accuracy of responses in web surveys; 2009; Conrad, F. G., Couper, M. P., Tourangeau, R., Galesic, M.
- Response Order and Response Distributions: The Format of the Response Options in a Web Survey; 2009; Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F. G., Couper, M. P., Balter, O.
- Improving the Design of Complex Matrix Questions; 2009; Couper, M. P., Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F. G.
- Classifying Open Occupation Descriptions in the Current Population Survey; 2008; Conrad, F. G., Couper, M. P.
- Social Cues Can Affect Answers to Threatening Questions in Virtual Interviews; 2008; Lind, L. H., Schober, M. F., Conrad, F. G.
- Virtual Interviews on Mundane, Non-Sensitive Topics: Dialog Capability Affects Response Accuracy More...; 2008; Conrad, F. G., Schober, M. F., Jans, M., Orlowski, R. A., Nielsen, D.
- The Impact of the Spacing of the Scale Options in a Web Survey; 2008; Kennedy, C., Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F. G., Couper, M. P., Redline, C. D.
- Surveys interviews and new communication technologies; 2007; Schober, M. F., Conrad, F. G.
- Interactive Features of Web Surveys; 2007; Conrad, F. G.
- The Impact of the Visible: The Design of Web Surveys; 2007; Tourangeau, R., Couper, M. P., Conrad, F. G.
- Color, Labels, and Interpretive Heuristics for Response Scales; 2006; Tourangeau, R., Couper, M. P., Conrad, F. G.
- Promoting Uniform Question Understanding in Today's and Tomorrow's Surveys; 2005; Conrad, F. G., Schober, M. F.
- Visual Context Effects in Web Surveys; 2005; Couper, M. P., Conrad, F. G., Tourangeau, R.
- Spacing, Position, and Order: Interpretive Heuristics for Visual Features of Survey Questions; 2004; Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F. G., Couper, M. P.
- Web Survey Design: Paging vs. Scrolling; 2004; Peytchev, A., Crawford, S. D., McCabe, S. E., Conrad, F. G., Couper, M. P.
- Use and non-use of clarification features in web surveys; 2003; Tourangeau, R., P., Couper, M. P., Conrad, F. G., Baker, R. P.
- What They See Is What We Get: Response Options for Web Surveys; 2003; Couper, M. P., Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F. G., Crawford, S. D.