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Web Survey Bibliography

Title Clarifying Question Meaning In A Web-Based Survey
Author Lind, L. H., Schober, M. F., Conrad, F. G.
Source The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) 56th Annual Conference, 2001
Year 2001
Access date 26.05.2004
Abstract Respondents have been shown to interpret concepts in ordinary questions about facts and behaviors much more uniformly when presented with definitions; without definitions, interpretations can vary substantially. But it is impractical to include lengthy definitions in questions themselves, and respondents don’t always recognize when they need clarification. Here we explore whether including parts of definitions in questions sensitizes respondents to the need for clarification. Respondents answered 10 questions from ongoing government surveys in a web-browser-based computer-administered self-interview, in which they could click on highlighted text to get survey definitions. They answered on the basis of fictional scenarios so that we could de-termine response accuracy. Some respondents answered the questions as originally worded, some answered reworded questions that incorporated a part of the definition relevant to a potential ambiguity in their scenario, and others answered questions re-worded to include irrelevant parts of the definitions. Results show that reworded questions only improved response accuracy when they included exactly the parts of definitions relevant to respondents’ ambiguous circumstances. Irrelevant components of definitions increased survey duration without improving response accuracy or increasing respondent clarification-seeking. Be-cause it’s hard to anticipate such ambiguities, more sophisticated systems that allow clarification dialogue are likely to be pref-erable.
Year of publication2001
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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Web survey bibliography - 2001 (57)

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