Web Survey Bibliography
Relevance & Research Question
When designing questionnaires, an important decision to make is whether or not to include a ‘do-not-know-option’. In interviews this dilemma is solved by not explicitly offering ‘do-not-know’, but accepting it when it occurs. Interviewers are instructed to accept a non-substantive answer only after a gentle probe.
Online surveys, being self-administered, lack an interviewer. Therefore, web survey designers are hesitant to offer an explicit do-not-know option and ‘required answer’ is often default standard software. However survey methodologist strongly advice against this forced-answer strategy. Requiring an answer does not necessarily ensure that the right answer is given and may lead to irritation and more break-offs or to guessing and less valid answers, thereby reducing data quality.
Methods and Data
The data were collected among members of the LISS panel, a probability based panel of the Dutch population. The questionnaire contained questions, which in previous self-administered surveys showed a high percentage of item-nonresponse. A three by two experimental design was used. Factor A manipulated no explicit offering vs offering do-not-know in two different ways, visually separating do-not know and offering do-not know as a special button. Factor B manipulated accepting a do-not-know vs. only accepting it after a friendly probe. Respondents were randomly assigned to experimental conditions.
Results
We found clear effects of offering ‘do-not-know’ and of probing. Not explicitly offering do-not-know (but allowing to skip) followed by a friendly probe resulted in the lowest amount of missing information. Respondent evaluations showed that when do-not-know was offered explicitly the questions were experienced as less difficult. When a probe was offered, respondents indicated that the questions made them think more (about the topic). These results suggest that offering a d-not-know without probing gives respondents an easy escape, while probing stimulates the question-answer process. The scale reliabilities support this.
Added Value
This study adds an empirical basis to the debate on whether or not to offer do-not-know options in web surveys. We show that explicitly offering a do-not-know option in a web survey is not advisable. Allowing respondents to skip a question and programming in friendly probes is a good alternative.
GOR Homepage (abstract) / (presentation)
Web survey bibliography - 2013 (465)
- The role of gamification in better accessing reality and hence increasing data validity ; 2015; Bailey, P.; Kernohan, H.; Pritchard, G.
- Rewarding the Truth; 2015; Puleston, J.
- Tailored fieldwork design to increase representative household survey response: an experiment in the...; 2015; Luiten, A.; Schouten, B.
- Challenges with Online Research for Couples and Families: Evaluating Nonrespondents and the Differential...; 2015; Busby, D. M.; Yoshida, Ke.
- Do Incentives Commoditize Surveys Or Reinforce The Relationship Economy?; 2014; Murphy, L.
- Is it what you say, or how you say It? An experimental analysis of the effects of invitation wording...; 2014; Fazekas, Z., Wall, M. T., Krouwel, A.
- Asking Sensitive Questions: An Evaluation of the Randomized Response Technique Versus Direct Questioning...; 2013; Wolter, F.; Preisendoerfer, P.
- Developing an Inclusive Web Survey Design for Respondents with Disabilities; 2013; Jagger, J.; Schaad, A.; Davis, As.; Falcone, A. E.
- The Impact of Survey Communications on Response Rates and Response Quality; 2013; Barlas, F. M.; Falcone, A. E.; Bellamy, N. D.; Mack, A. R.
- The Smartphone Way to Collect Survey Data; 2013; Stapleton, C.
- A Glimpse Inside the Mind of a Respondent: Using Paradata to Improve Online Surveys; 2013; Pape, T.; Barron, S.
- Respondent Choice of Survey Mode; 2013; Fuchs, M.
- Mobile-Mostly Internet Users and Noncoverage in Traditional Web Surveys ; 2013; Antoun, C.; Couper, M. P.
- Pret met panels [Fun online]; 2013; Roberts, A., de Leeuw, E. D., Hox, J., Klausch, L. T., de Jongh, A.
- Leuker kunnen wij het wel maken. Online vragenlijst design: standaard matrix of scrollmatrix (We can...; 2013; Roberts, A., de Leeuw, E. D., Hox, J., Klausch, L. T., de Jongh, A.
- Development and validation of a single- item scale for the relative assessment of physical attractiveness...; 2013; Lutz, J.; Kemper, C. J.; Beierlein, C.; etc.
- Accounting for the Effects of Data Collection Method Application to the International Tobacco Control...; 2013; Thompson, M. E.; Huang, Y. C.; Boudreau, C.; Fong, G. T.; van den Putte, B.; Nagelhout, G. E.; Willemsen...
- A dual-frame sampling methodology to address landline replacement in tobacco control research..; 2013; McMillen, R. C.; Winickoff, J. P.; Wilson, K.; Tanski, S.; Klein, J. D.
- User Modeling via Machine Learning and Rule-Based Reasoning to Understand and Predict Errors in Survey...; 2013; Stuart, L. C.
- Measuring Mobile Phone Use: Self-Report Versus Log Data; 2013; Boase, J., Ling, R.
- How Sliders Bias Survey Data; 2013; Sellers, R.
- Does the first impression count? Examining the effect of the welcome screen design on the response rate...; 2013; Haer, R., Meidert, N.
- Survey Research Response Rates: Internet Technology vs. Snail Mail ; 2013; Lanier, P. A., Tanner, J. R., Totaro, M. W., Gradnigo, G.
- The impact of New Zealand's 2008 prohibition of piperazine-based party pills on young people'...; 2013; Sheridan, J., Dong, C. Y., Butler, R., Barnes, J.
- PRM144 – An adaptable methodology for the design, implementation and conduct of a web-based survey...; 2013; Yeomans, K., Kawata, A. K., Bassel, M., Burk, C. T., Daniels, S. R., Wilcox, T. K.
- The relationships among nurses' job characteristics and attitudes toward web-based continuing learning...; 2013; Chiu, Y.-L., Tsai, C.-C., Fan Chiang, C.-Y.
- Surveillance of patients post-endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR). A web-based survey...; 2013; Patel, A., Edwards, R., Chandramohan, S.
- How well do volunteer web panel surveys measure sensitive behaviours in the general population, and...; 2013; Erens, B., Burkill, S., Copas, A., Couper, M. P., Conrad, F.
- Tailoring mode of data collection in longitudinal studies; 2013; Kaminska, O., Lynn, P.
- Comparison of Three Modes for a Crime Victimization Survey; 2013; Laaksonen, S., Heiskanen, M.
- Community Life Survey: Summary of web experiment findings; 2013
- Does Stress Increase the Risk of Atopic Dermatitis in Adolescents? Results of the Korea Youth Risk Behavior...; 2013; Kwon, J. A., Lee, M., Park, E.-C., Park, S., Yoo, K.-B.
- The Short-term Campaign Panel of the German Longitudinal Election Study 2009. Design, Implementation...; 2013; Steinbrecher, M., Rossmann, J.
- Understanding Society Innovation Panel Wave 5: results from methodological experiments; 2013; Auspurg, K., Burton, J., Cullinane, C., Delavande, A., Fumagalli, L., Iacovou, M., Jaeckle, A., Kaminska...
- Bringing usability to pretesting of Business Survey Web Forms in Statistics Finland; 2013; Rouhunkoski, J.
- How do we Know Cognitive Interviewing is Any Good?; 2013; Willis, G. B.
- Survey optimisation considerations for Android, Apple and Windows 8 mobile devices; 2013; Owen, R.
- Speeding in Web Surveys: The tendency to answer very fast and its association with straightlining; 2013; Conrad, F. G.; Zhang, Che.
- About the Institute of Public Health - Data aspect; 2013; Zaletel, M.
- Analyzing Paradata to Investigate Measurement Error; 2013; Yan, T., Olson, K.
- Too Fast, Too Straight, Too Weird: Post Hoc Identification of Meaningless Data in Internet ; 2013; Leiner, D. J.
- Can timestamp analyses show the bottlenecks in web surveys?; 2013; Andreadis, I.
- Timing in a web based survey: an influential factor of the response rate; 2013; Paraschiv, D.-C.
- Achieving Synergy Across Survey Modes: Mail Contact and Web Responses from Address-Based Samples; 2013; Dillman, D. A.
- The Future of Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research; 2013; Hill, C., Dever, J. A.
- Collecting Diary Data on Twitter; 2013; Richards, A., Dean, E., Cook, S.
- Second Life as a Survey Lab: Exploring the Randomized Response Technique in a Virtual Setting; 2013; Richards, A., Dean, E.
- Virtual Cognitive Interviewing Using Skype and Second Life; 2013; Dean, E., Head, B., Swicegood, J. E.
- Sentiment Analysis: Providing Categorical Insight into Unstructured Textual Data; 2013; Haney, C.
- Social Media, Sociality, and Survey Research; 2013; Hill, C., Dean, E., Murphy, J.