Responses To Online Questionnaires
Response rates are frequently quite low and there is a danger that they will continue to drop due to over-surveying of web-users.
Jon Krosnick argues that the following three factors determine the successfulness of the questionnaire and the likelihood of achieving decent levels of response.
- Respondent ability
- Respondent motivation
- Task difficulty/questionnaire design
Bosnjak and Tuten argue that there are at least seven ways in which online survey's are responded to.
They establish the following typology
- Complete Responders are those respondents who view all questions and answer all questions.
- Unit nonresponders are those individuals who do not participate in the survey. There are two possible variations to the unit nonresponder. Such an individual could be technically hindered from participation, or he or she may purposefully withdraw after the welcome screen is displayed, but prior to viewing any questions.
- Answering Drop-Outs consist of individuals who provide answers to those questions displayed, but quit prior to completing the survey.
- Lurkers view all of the questions in the survey, but do not answer any of the questions.
- Lurking Drop-Outs represent a combination of 3 and 4. Such a participant views some of the questions without answering, but also quits the survey prior to reaching the end.
- Item nonresponders view the entire questionnaire, but only answer some of the questions.
- Item non-responding drop-outs represent a mixture of 3 and 6. Individuals displaying this response behavior view some of the questions, answer some but not all of the questions viewed, and also quit prior to the end of the survey.
Read more about this topic: Computer-assisted Web Interviewing
Famous quotes containing the words responses to and/or responses:
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—Alice Sterling Honig (20th century)
“Research shows clearly that parents who have modeled nurturant, reassuring responses to infants’ fears and distress by soothing words and stroking gentleness have toddlers who already can stroke a crying child’s hair. Toddlers whose special adults model kindliness will even pick up a cookie dropped from a peer’s high chair and return it to the crying peer rather than eat it themselves!”
—Alice Sterling Honig (20th century)