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Web Survey Bibliography

Title Instant Interactive Feedback in Grid Questions: Reminding Web Survey
Year 2014
Access date 08.09.2014
Abstract
Interactive Web-based surveys permit direct interventions depending on respondents’ behaviors similar to interviewer-administered surveys. Previous findings on interactive feedback addressing speeding and nondifferentiation in grid questions showed that prompts slowed down response times and reduced straight-lining in later grid questions without increasing the risk of survey breakoff (Conrad et al., 2009, 2011; Zhang, 2012, 2013). Although these findings are promising, effects of interactive feedback on the prevention of satisficing behaviors in grid questions are rather small. This may be due to the fact that these studies used either a pop-up window or a follow-up Web page to deliver the interactive feedback to respondents. Thus, respondents were supposed to actively return to the grid affected by speeding or nondifferentiation. By contrast, the present experiments implemented interactive feedback that was instantly triggered depending on respondents’ satisficing behaviors, i.e., speeding and nondifferentiation while the respondents were still answering a particular grid question. The underlying idea was that feedback provided instantly while the items were still being answered can address satisficing behaviors more efficiently as compared to delayed feedback provided after the grid was submitted. In a randomized field experimental Web survey conducted among study applicants (n=7454), a between-subjects design was implemented to test the effect of instant interactive feedback with two different kinds of messages asking respondents to either take more time to answer (experiment 1) or to differentiate more between responses to items of the same grid (experiment 2). Initial findings indicated that speeding and nondifferentiation were significantly reduced by either feedback message. Furthermore, effects carried over to later questions. These results suggest that instant interactive feedback has the potential to induce immediate and sustainable improvements in respondent behavior. In addition, results are discussed in view of the precise timing of feedback to obtain best possible effects concerning improved data quality.
Year of publication2014
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
Print

Web survey bibliography - The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) 69th Annual Conference, 2014 (20)