Web Survey Bibliography
PURPOSE: To assess the impact of including next and back buttons on response burden and measurement reliability of computer-based surveys.
METHODS: A sample of 807 participants (mean age of 53; 64% women, 83% non-Hispanic white; 81% some college or college graduates) from the YouGov Polimetrix panel was administered 56 items assessing performance of social/role activities and 56 items measuring satisfaction with social/role activities. Participants were randomly assigned to either (1) automatic advance to the next question with no opportunity to go back (auto/no back); (2) automatic advance to the next questions with an opportunity to go back (auto/back); (3) next button to go to the next question with no opportunity to go back (next/no back); or (4) next button to go to the next question with an opportunity to go back (next/back).
RESULTS: We found no difference in missing data, internal consistency reliability, and domain scores by group. Time to complete the survey was about 50% longer when respondents were required to use a next button to go on.
CONCLUSIONS: Given the similarity in missing data, reliability and mean scale scores with or without use of the next button, we recommend automatic advancement to the next item with the option to go back to the previous item.
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Web survey bibliography (18)
- Virtual Cognitive Interviewing Using Skype and Second Life; 2013; Dean, E., Head, B., Swicegood, J. E.
- Using an Item Response Theory Approach to Measure Survey Mode of Administration Effects: Analysis of...; 2013; Mariano, L. T., Elliott, M. N.
- Survey Sidekick: Learning & designing scientifically sound surveys; 2013; Hsiao, I.-H., Malhotra, M., Joo, J., Chae, H. S., Natriello, G.
- Media tracker; 2012
- Specific mixed-mode methodology to reach sensory disabled people in quantitative surveys; 2012; Fontaine, S.
- The Usage of a Cloud Service as an Effective Way of Sharing Cognitive and Usability Test Information; 2012; Rouhunkoski, J., Godenhjelm, P.
- Using Text-to-Speech (TTS) for Audio-CASI; 2012; Couper, M. P., Kirgis, N., Buageila, S., Berglund, P.
- Data Quality from Low Cost Data Collection Methodologies; 2012; Traugott, M. W.
- IVR and web administration in structured interviews utilizing rating scales: exploring the role of motivation...; 2011; Yang, Y., Callegaro, M., Bhola, D. S., Dillman, D. A.
- The impact of next and back buttons on time to complete and measurement reliability in computer-based...; 2010; Hays, R. D., Bode, R., Rothrock, N., Riley, W., Cella, D., Gershon, R.
- Continuous Measurement of Musically-Induced Emotion: A Web Experiment ; 2009; Egermann, H., Nagel, F., Altenmueller, E., Kopiez, R.
- E-epidemiology : Adapting epidemiological methods for the 21st century; 2009; Bexelius, C.
- Mobile phone surveys in mixed mode environment; 2009; Vehovar, V.
- Social desirability bias in CATI, IVR and Web surveys: The effects of mode and question sensitivity; 2008; Kreuter, F., Presser, S., Tourangeau, R.
- IVR: Interactive voice technology; 2008; Miller-Steiger, D., Conroy, B.
- Does Voice Matter? An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Experiment; 2004; Couper, M. P., Singer, E., Tourangeau, R.
- Humanizing self-administered surveys: experiments on social presence in web and IVR surveys; 2003; Tourangeau, R., Couper, M. P., Steiger, D. M., de Rouvray, C.
- Self-administered questions by telephone: Evaluating interactive voice response; 2002; Tourangeau, R., Steiger, D. M.,