Web Survey Bibliography
This paper has two major goals. The first is to examine how people with differing demographic characteristics (education, income, sex, age) may exhibit differences in a variety of respondent behaviors, including response non-differentiation, response order effects, and response style (extreme, central tendency) in web-based surveys. We also explored the consequences of these respondent behaviors on data quality. The second goal is to advance our understanding on how psychological constructs (need for cognition, need for evaluation, and social-orientation variables) might mediate the effects of demographics on non-differentiation and response style. For the first goal, in four large datasets based on web-based studies we analyzed how demographic variables were related to response behavior (including completion time for two of the studies). In these studies we found some indication that non-differentiation was more likely to occur with respondents with less, rather than more education. We also found that the extreme response style was somewhat more associated with less education as well. Sex and age of respondent were also somewhat related to response style, but not as clearly with non-differentiation. The fifth study had 3933 respondents. Respondents completed a series of items designed to measure a variety of psychological constructs and then were presented with a series of tasks involving ratings across a variety of topics. With regard to the psychological measures, we found that the effects of demographics on response effects were moderated by the need for cognition – those who had more education expressed a higher need for cognition, and were less likely to engage in non-differentiation. We also found a number of effects for some very specific variables on speed of completion and response style.
Web survey bibliography - Thomas, R. K. (35)
- Quota Controls in Survey Research.; 2016; Gittelman, S. H.; Thomas, R. K.; Lavrakas, P. J.; Lange, V.
- Scientific Surveys Based on Incomplete Sampling Frames and High Rates of Nonresponse; 2016; Fahimi, M.; Barlas, F. M.; Thomas, R. K.; Buttermore, N. R.
- On the Go: How Mobile Participants Affect Survey Results; 2015; Barlas, F. M.; Thomas, R. K.
- The Matrix Lives On: Improving Grids for Online Surveys; 2015; Thomas, R. K.; Barlas, F. M.; Graham, P.; Subias, T.
- Purposefully Mobile: Experimentally Assessing Device Effects in an Online Survey ; 2015; Barlas, F. M.; Thomas, R. K.; Graham, P.
- Sub-optimal Respondent Behavior and Data Quality in Online Surveys; 2015; Thomas, R. K.
- Respondents Playing Fast and Loose?: Antecedents and Consequences of Respondent Speed of Completion; 2014; Thomas, R. K., Barlas, F. M.
- Alone in a Group: Comparison of Effects of a Group-Administered Paper-Pencil Survey Versus an Individually...; 2013; Higgins, W. B., Barlas, F. M., Pflieger, J., Thomas, R. K., Jeffery, D., Mattiko, M.
- Watch Your Language!: The Impact of the Survey Language on Bilingual Hispanics’ Response Process...; 2013; Ay, M., Gross, W., Cobb, C. L., Thomas, R. K.
- Changing of the Guard: Effects of Different Self-Administered Survey Modes on Sensitive Questions; 2013; Barlas, F. M., Higgins, W. B., Pflieger, J., Thomas, R. K., Jeffery, D., Mattiko, M.
- Response Format Effects in the Measurement of Employment; 2013; Rodkin, S., Thomas, R. K., Subias, S., Chu, C.
- Impact of Filter Questions on Estimates of Media Consumption; 2013; Cobb, C. L., Godinez, D., Thomas, R. K., Baim, J.
- Effects of Response Format on Measurement of Readership; 2013; Thomas, R. K., Cobb, C. L., Baim, J.
- A Shot in the Dark: Measurement Influence on Likelihood to Vaccination; 2012; Higgins, W. B., Thomas, R. K.
- Response Anchoring and Polarity Effects on Endorsement and Response Patterns; 2012; Higgins, W. B., Thomas, R. K.
- I Got a Feeling: Comparison of Feeling Thermometers with Verbally Labeled Scales in Attitude Measurement...; 2012; Thomas, R. K., Bremer, J.
- The River Flows: Comparison of Experimental Effect Replicability with Different Sample Sources; 2012; Thomas, R. K.
- How Likely?: Comparisons of Behavioral Intention Measurement Validity; 2012; Bremer, J., Thomas, R. K.
- Cross-country Comparisons: Effects of Scale Type and Response Style Differences; 2011; Thomas, R. K.
- A Comparison of Branching Response Formats with Single Response Formats; 2011; Thomas, R. K.
- An Injured Party?: A Comparison of Political Party Response Formats in Party Identification.; 2011; Schwarz, S., Barlas, F. M., Thomas, R. K., Corso, R. A., Szoc, R.
- Response format effects on measurement of employment; 2009; Thomas, R. K., Dillman, D. A., Smyth, J. D.
- Response Formats in Cross-cultural Comparisons in Web-based Surveys; 2009; Thomas, R. K.l, Terhanian, G., Funke, F.
- Comparing Adolescent Response Bias Between Internet and Telephone Surveys ; 2009; Klein, J. D., Graff Havens, C., Thomas, R. K.
- Parallel Phone and Web-based Interviews: Effects of Sample and Weighting on Comparability and Validity...; 2008; Thomas, R. K., Krane, D., Taylor, H., Terhanian, G.
- Response Non-Differentiation and Response Styles in Web-Based Studies: Causes and Consequences ; 2008; Frisina, L. T., Thomas, R. K.
- Truth in measurement: Comparing Web Based interviewing Techniques; 2007; Couper, M. P., Terhanian, G., Bremer, J., Thomas, R. K.
- Behavioral self-report measures. International extensions; 2006; Thomas, R. K., Klein, J. D.
- Merely Incidental?: Effects of Response Format on Self-reported Behavior; 2006; Thomas, R. K., Klein, J. D.
- Rating versus comparative trade-off measures. Trending changes in political issues across time and predictive...; 2005; Thomas, R. K., Behnke, S., Johnson, Al., Sanders, M.
- On the primacy of affect in attitude-behavior research; 2004; Thomas, R. K., Schofield, C. M.
- It's Only Incidental: Effects of Response Format in Determining Behavioral or Event Occurrence; 2003; Lafond, C. R., Smith, M. R., Behnke, C. S., Thomas, R. K.
- Can What We Don’t Know (about “Don’t Know”) Hurt Us?: Effects of Item Non-response...; 2003; Krosnick, J. A., Behnke, C. S., Lafond, C. R., Thomas, R. K.
- Model of behavioral intention. A two-factor motivational model of behavioral intention; 2000; Thomas, R. K.
- Factors affecting measurement stability. More is not necessarily better: Effects of number of items...; 1999; Thomas, R. K.