Web Survey Bibliography
Relevance & Research Question:
The increasingly mixed technical devices respondents use to answer online surveys cause concern among survey researchers. Despite efforts to adjust online surveys to smartphones knowledge is still limited concerning how different response scales work on different devices. The main concern is that respondents who use a smartphone might treat response scales different than PC or laptop users. This paper analyzes response order effects (e.g. primacy effects) and uses large sample sizes that enable us to analyze whether these effects are conditional on scale length, question orientation (horizontal vs vertical) and the type of response device participants are using.
Methods & Data:
This paper reports four experiments where response option order, scale visual orientation (horizontal or vertical) also scale length are varied randomly. These experiments examine effects for dichotomous scales, 3-point scales, 5-point scales, 7-point scales and 11-point scales for political attitude questions. The data was collected by the Laboratory of Opinion Research (LORE) at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, from their online panel (The Swedish Citizen Panel) between May 2014 and June 2015.
Results:
Results indicate that vertical response scales suffer more from primacy effects than horizontal response scales, and that this is even more so for smartphone users. Moreover, we find an effect of scale orientation in itself apart from response order effects: vertically oriented scales produce more responses in the beginning of the scale (topmost) than horizontally oriented scales do (leftmost). This means that comparability between smartphone and PC data is threatened when questions are not shown in the same way to respondents on different devices. However, scale length clearly matters in that these effects are substantially larger when scales are 5 points or longer.
Added Value:
This paper demonstrates the importance of question orientation (horizontal vs vertical) and that these should be identical on smartphones and PCs to ensure comparability. Since each of the four experiments contain at least 10,000 participants and the share of smartphone users is substantial (between 20 and 30 percent) these can be analyzed with sufficient statistical power.
Web survey bibliography - Mobile phone surveys (305)
- Measuring Subjective Health and Life Satisfaction with U.S. Hispanics; 2017; Lee, S.; Davis, R.
- Device and Internet Use among Spanish-dominant Hispanics: Implications for Web Survey Design and Testing...; 2017; Trejo, Y. A. G.; Schoua-Glusberg, A.
- How to Design a Web Survey Using Spring Boot With MYSQL: a Romanien Network Case Study; 2017; Bucea-Manea-Tonis, Ro.; Bucea-Manea-Tonis, Ra.
- Analyzing Survey Characteristics, Participation, and Evaluation Across 186 Surveys in an Online Opt-...; 2017; Revilla, M.
- Data chunking for mobile web: effects on data quality; 2017; Lugtig, P. J.; Toepoel, V.
- Mobile-only web survey respondents; 2016; Lugtig, P. J.; Toepoel, V.; Amin, A.
- Development and Pilot Test of a Mobile Application for Field Data Collection; 2016; Chiappetta, L.; Kerr, M. M.
- Are Initial Respondents Different from the Nonresponse Follow-Up Cases? A Study of Probability-Based...; 2016; Zeng, W.; Dennis, J. M.
- A Feasibility Study of Recruiting and Maintaining a Web Panel of People with Disabilities; 2016; Chandler, J.
- Why Do Web Surveys Take Longer on Smartphones?; 2016; Couper, M. P.; J. J.Peterson, G. J.
- Web surveys for offline rural communities ; 2016; Gichohi, B. W.
- Pre-Survey Text Messages (SMS) Improve Participation Rate in an Australian Mobile Telephone Survey:...; 2016; Dal Grande, E.; Chittleborough, C. R.; Campostrini, S.; Dollard, M.; Taylor, A. W.
- Short and Sweet? Length and Informative Content of Open-Ended Responses Using SMS as a Research Mode; 2016; Walsh, E.; Brinker, J. K.
- Collecting Data from mHealth Users via SMS Surveys: A Case Study in Kenya; 2016; Johnson, D.
- Online Surveys are Mixed-Device Surveys. Issues Associated with the Use of Different (Mobile) Devices...; 2016; Toepoel, V.; Lugtig, P. J.
- Using Mobile Phones for High-Frequency Data Collection; 2015; Azevedo, J. P.; Ballivian, A.; Durbin, W.
- Who Are the Internet Users, Mobile Internet Users, and Mobile-Mostly Internet Users?: Demographic Differences...; 2015; Antoun, C.
- Mobile Research Methods: Opportunities and challenges of mobile research methodologies. ; 2015; Toninelli, D. (Ed.); Pinter, R.; de Pedraza, P.
- Web Surveys Optimized for Smartphones: Are there Differences Between Computer and Smartphone Users?; 2015; Andreadis, I.
- Usability of the ACS Internet Instrument on Mobile Devices; 2015; Horwitz, R.
- GreenBook Research Industry Trends Report; 2015; Murphy, L. (Ed.)
- Emerging Technologies: The Rise of Mobile Devices: From Smartphones to Smart Surveys; 2015; Buskirk, T. D.
- PayPal? An Incentive to Check-out?; 2015; Franklin, J.; Rasmussen, C.; Pruitt, J.; Waller, D.
- Designing Bonsai Surveys: The small but perfectly formed survey experience to meet the needs of the...; 2015; Puleston, J.
- Open narrative questions in PC and smartphones: is the device playing a role?; 2015; Revilla, M.; Ochoa, C.
- Recruiting Respondents for a Mobile Phone Panel: The Impact of Recruitment Question Wording on Cooperation...; 2015; Busse, B.; Fuchs, M.
- Internet Research in Psychology; 2015; Gosling, S. D., Mason, W.
- Are Tailored Outreach Efforts Too Costly? An Assessment of a Responsive Design Approach to Control Costs...; 2015; Epps, S. R.; Getman, D. P.; Hall, L. M.; Hunter, J. A.
- Evaluating Visual Design Elements for Data Collection and Panelist Engagement; 2015; Christian, L. M.; Harm, D.; Langer Tesfaye, C.; Wells, T.
- Does the use of mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) affect survey quality and choice behaviour...; 2015; Liebe, U., Glenk, K., Oehlmann, M., Meyerhoff, J.
- When it comes to mobile respondent experience and data quality, survey design matters; 2014; Mitchell, N.
- The Changing Landscape of Technology and its Effect on Online Survey Data Collection; 2014; Mitchell, N.
- The need of and the demand for completing surveys on mobile devices; 2014; Toninelli, D., Revilla, M., Ochoa, C.
- Survey participation via mobile devices in a probability-based online-panel: Prevalence, determinants...; 2014; Poggio, T., Bosnjak, M., Weyandt, K.
- Keeping Surveys Valid, Reliable, and Useful: A Tutorial; 2014; Greenberg, M. R., Weiner, M. D.
- Improving Response Rates and Questionnaire Design for Mobile Web Surveys; 2014; de Bruijne, M., Wijnant, A.
- Does Survey Mode Still Matter? Findings from a 2010 Multi-Mode Comparison; 2014; Ansolabehere, S., Schaffner, B. F.
- Nonresponse and Mode Effects in Self- and Interviewer-Administered Surveys; 2014; Atkeson, L. R.; Adams, A. N.; Alvarez, M. R.
- Do Web surveys facilitate reporting less favourable opinions about law enforcement?; 2014; Boivin, R., Cordeau, G.
- Question Grouping and Matrices in Web Surveys: Using Response and Auxiliary Data to Examine Question...; 2014; Bilgen, I., Stern, M. J.
- The Grouping of Items in Mobile Web Surveys; 2014; Mavletova, A. M., Couper, M. P.
- Moving answers with the GyroScale: Using the mobile device’s gyroscope for market research purposes...; 2014; Luetters, H., Kraus, M., Westphal, D.
- Students First Choice – the influence of mobile mode on results; 2014; Maxl, E.
- Device Effects: How different screen sizes affect answer quality in online questionnaires; 2014; Fischer, B., Bernet, F.
- Moving towards mobile ready web panels; 2014; Wijnant, A., de Bruijne, M.
- Online mobile surveys in Italy: coverage and other methodological challenges; 2014; Poggio, T.
- Comparison of Three Modes for a Crime Victimization Survey; 2013; Laaksonen, S., Heiskanen, M.
- 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...
- A Comparison of Results from a Spanish and English Mail Survey: Effects of Instruction Placement on...; 2013; Wang, K., Sha, M.
- Intra-individual variation of extreme response style in mixed-mode panel studies; 2013; Aichholzer, J.