Web Survey Bibliography
Because of its interactive character the web may promote more accurate survey data than do other modes. One way that interactivity can increase data quality is by providing feedback to respondents about their answers. For example, questions known as tally or constant sum items require that multiple answers sum to a fixed total, e.g. 24 hours or 100 percent; for these items a web questionnaire can inform the respondent about whether or not their individual answers add-up to the target value. Designers can provide this feedback when the respondent submits the entire set of responses or in a running tally that is incremented as the respondent enters each component answer. We report three experiments that investigate how this kind of feedback aects the quality of answers for tally items. In experiment 1 we found that if the computer displays a running tally this increased the number of totals equal to the target sum (100% of a respondents internet usage) relative to feedback that is delayed until after the total is submitted, which in turn led to more totals equaling the target than no feedback. While promising, this result really concerns the number of well-formed answers (i.e., those equal to the target) which is not necessarily the same as the number of accurate answers because some respondents may produce a well-formed answer by adjusting one or two component answers to make the total add to the target without improving the accuracy of the components. So in experiments 2 and 3 we asked whether feedback about the total also led to more accurate data. In experiment 2, respondents reported how long it had taken them to complete each section of the questionnaire they were just nishing and we compared this to their actual times; the difference between their self-reports and the server-recorded durations was smaller when a running tally was displayed than when it was not. In experiment 3 we asked respondents to report how much time they had spent on each of several activities in the previous day and compared their time use estimates to published population estimates. Again, the running tally led to smaller dierences between the self- and published reports than when this feedback was not provided. Taken together, the studies suggest that the interactivity of the web can improve both the form and the accuracy of answers for this type of item. It is not possible to provide feedback like this with self-administered paper questionnaires and it is not easy to do so in interviews so this may be a case where web administration adds clear value over other modes of data collection.
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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.