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Web Survey Bibliography

Title Humanizing Cues in Internet Surveys: Investigating Respondent Cognitive Processes
Year 2017
Access date 15.09.2017
Abstract In survey methodology, humanizing cues denote the procedures that imitate the interviewer and substitute some of the interviewer tasks (Tourangeau et al. 2003). Presenting a photo, an audio file, a video with the interviewer asking questions, or an animated person is considered the way to mobilize respondents and attract their attention. However, current methodological research on humanizing cues concentrate only on the interviewer effect and the social desirability bias; they do not cover the problem of the cognitive processes that are activated while answering the survey questions (Krosnick 1991; 1999). 
This presentation reports on the results from an experiment conducted in November and December 2016 among university students (N=900) as part of the research project funded by the Polish National Science Center. This project aims to estimate the influence of humanizing cues on the quality of the data obtained in internet surveys. Although different data quality indicators were used, in the presentation we refer to those indicators that describe respondents’ tendency to shortcut cognitive processes (satisficing): (a) choosing non-substantive answers to attitude questions; (b)non-differentiation when giving multiple answers on the same response scale; (c) tendency to agree with any assertion, regardless of its content; (d) choosing options expressing approval for status quo; and (e) choosing the first reasonable option. The following types of Internet surveys were used in the experiment: (1) CAWI/text (with all stimuli presented in the form of text); (2) CAWI/photo (with stimuli presented in the form of text and an interviewer photo); and (3) CAWI/movie (with all stimuli presented in the form of video of real interviewers and, additionally, the answers presented in the form of text). Moreover, (4) CAPI was utilized within the experiment as an additional frame of reference. All versions of research tools reflect the growing extent of humanization of the research procedure.
Year of publication2017
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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Web survey bibliography (4086)

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