Web Survey Bibliography
Asking questions is the predominant method of gathering information about people’s beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviors, and states of affairs (e.g., Foddy, 1993; Schuman & Presser, 1981). To ensure that the data obtained through surveys are reliable and lead to valid conclusions, respondents must comprehend the questions as intended by the survey designer and find it easy to answer them accurately. More specifically, they must understand the item, retrieve relevant information, use this information to make a judgment, and select and report an answer (Strack & Martin, 1987; Tourangeau, 1984). Depending on various characteristics of the questionnaire, respondents may find it more or less difficult to perform these steps accurately. For example, question comprehension is impeded by questions containing imprecise terms or complex syntactic structures which make it difficult to identify the question focus or represent the logical form of the question (cf. Tourangeau, Rips, & Rasinski, 2000). A suboptimal wording of survey questions can thus increase respondent burden by requiring more cognitive effort for understanding what the questions are about. If respondents have trouble understanding questions, they are likely to provide inaccurate answers (Schober …
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