The Survey Geek

Tag: Questionnaire Design

  • Let’s focus on the third leg

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    RegBaker
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    Kristin Luck writes a column for RBR and for two issues in a row she's worked the worry beads about what she sees as declining interest in online panel data quality. In the current column Kristin draws heavily on a reaction to her first column by Jackie Lorch. Jackie summarizes two legs of the online…

  • Let’s do our homework

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    RegBaker
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    A few weeks back I recommended the special POQ issue on Total Survey Error. One particular article caught my eye, "Satisficing Among Reluctant Respondents in a Cross-National Context." The data for the paper is from the European Social Survey, a high quality face-to-face survey in 30 European countries. The article looks at three constructs of…

  • Some things we should already know

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    RegBaker
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    Earlier in the week Jeffrey Henning (IMHO the best of the MR bloggers) served up a much-praised and frequently retweeted post on why respondents abandon Web surveys. His post does what most of the respondent engagement debate does not do and that is get down to some basic facts about what it is in surveys…

  • A good idea but . . .

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    RegBaker
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    The empty threat of a major blizzard (forecast of up to 15" of snow with an actual snowfall of 5") here in Ann Arbor presented a nice excuse to stay home and catch up on some reading. The December issue of the Journal of Official Statistics was on the list and I was happy to…

  • For those mobile users sneaking into Web surveys

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    RegBaker
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    AAPOR's online journal Survey Practice continues to be one of my favorite places to go for quick updates on the latest methodological research. To wit, the December issue has a nice little piece by Mario Callegaro on mobile users who perhaps unexpectedly show up to take an online survey designed for administration via a laptop…

  • KISS

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    RegBaker
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    One of the links in the blog roll down on the right is to Jakob Nielsen's site, usit.com. Nielsen does a steady stream of Web usability research and has published a number of excellent books on the topic. It's always interesting to look at his work and see what lessons there might be in it…

  • Mastery, Mystery, and Misery

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    RegBaker
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    Well over a decade ago when we first started doing Web surveys I had an on again, off again argument with colleague who used to say, "A Web survey should look like a Web site." My counter was that motivations of site visitors are different from those of survey respondents. Site visitors come of their…

  • When will we learn?

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    RegBaker
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    I am delighted to see Mirta Galesic's and Michael Bosnjak's 2003 study of the impact of questionnaire length on response quality in Web surveys finally make it into print, in this case the summer issue of POQ. We all believe down to our toes that long surveys are bad, but I have been disappointed on…

  • More thumbs down on eye candy in surveys

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    RegBaker
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    The current issue of Inside Research has a short note on some work done at DMS looking at respondent reactions to rich text and graphical interfaces in Web surveys. It’s hard to go to a MR conference these days without seeing someone present a passionate argument for the use of Flash or various kinds of…

  • Well said

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    RegBaker
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    I’m catching up with some reading on a flight to DC and have come across an interesting interview in the May issue of Research World. While interviewing Obama’s pollster, Joel Benenson, Simon Chadwick asks, “Is it all about how you analyze the data?” Benenson’s response is especially eloquent: “Look, if you write a good survey,…