Notice: the WebSM website has not been updated since the beginning of 2018.

Web Survey Bibliography

Title Multiple Answer Questions in Self-administered Surveys: The Use of Check-All-That-Apply and Forced-Choice Question Formats
Year 2003
Access date 28.10.2004
Full text pdf (195k)
Abstract This paper reports results from a series of experimental manipulations of check-all-that-apply questions in an Internet survey. One purpose of the experiments was to determine whether reversing the order of the presentation of response options resulted in order effects, including primacy and anchoring. A second purpose was to determine the effects of converting check-all-that-apply guestions to a forced choice-format (e.g. Yes/No for each item). We found that the existence of order effects in check-all-that-apply questions appear to depend on whether questions require respondents to use temporarily or chronically accessible information, as has been previously reported for items requiring selection of only one response option. The conversion to a forced/choised format increased the percentage of respondents answering affirmatively to each response option. Aditionally, forced-choice formatted questions were unaffected by the use of more active answer categories (e.g. fan/not a fan) asw opposed to the common yes/no format. Finally the results from the survey of a random sample of 1503 University students, were quite similar to results from a previous mail survey experiment, suggesting that the response patterens observed in the current experiment result from self-administation in general, and not from a unique characteristic of web survey.
Access/Direct link Hompage - Dillman (full text)
Year of publication2003
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
Print

Web survey bibliography - Christian, L. M. (21)