The Influence of Graphical and Symbolic Language Manipulations on Responses to Self-Administered Questions (original) (raw)
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This paper reports results from 14 experimental comparisons designed to test 7 hypotheses about the effects of two types of nonverbal languages (symbols and graphics) on responses to self- administered questionnaires. The experiments were included in a large-scale survey of 1,042 university students. Significant differences were observed for most comparisons, providing support for all seven hypotheses. These results confirm that respondents' answers to questions in self-administered surveys are influenced by more than words. Thus, the visual presentation of questions must be taken into consideration when designing such surveys and, especially, when comparing results across surveys in which the visual presentation of questions is varied. It has been recognized for many years that answers to self-administered questionnaires are influenced by the way in which questions and answers are displayed on questionnaire pages (e.g., Wright and Barnard, 1975, 1978; Rothwell, 1985; Smith, 19...
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Visual Design, Order Effects, and Respondent Characteristics in a Self-Administered Survey
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Recent survey design research has shown that small changes in the structure and visual layout of questions can affect respondents' answers. While the findings have provided strong evidence of such effects, they are limited by the homogeneity of their samples, in that many of these studies have used random samples of college students. In this paper, we examine the effects of seven experimental alterations in question format and visual design using data from a general population survey that allows us to examine the effects of demographic differences among respondents. Results from a 2005 random sample mail survey of 1,315 households in a small metropolitan region of the United States suggest that the visual layout of survey questions affects different demographic groups in similar ways.
The Language of Self-Administered Questionnaires as Seen Through the Eyes of RESPONDENTS1
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Cleo R. Jenkins U.S. Bureau of the Census and Don A. Dillman U.S. Bureau of the Census and Washington State University The Language of Self-Administered Questionnaires As Seen Through the Eyes of Respondents by Cleo R. Jenkins and Don A. Dillman "... we must recall that language includes much more than oral and written speech. Gestures, pictures, monuments, visual images, finger movements-anything consciously employed as a sign is, logically, language."
Visual design, order effects, and respondent characteristics
Recent survey design research has shown that small changes in the structure and visual layout of questions can affect respondents' answers. While the findings have provided strong evidence of such effects, they are limited by the homogeneity of their samples, in that many of these studies have used random samples of college students. In this paper, we examine the effects of seven experimental alterations in question format and visual design using data from a general population survey that allows us to examine the effects of demographic differences among respondents. Results from a 2005 random sample mail survey of 1,315 households in a small metropolitan region of the United States suggest that the visual layout of survey questions affects different demographic groups in similar ways.
Effects of using visual design principles to group response options in Web surveys
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In this paper, we show that in Web questionnaires verbal and visual languages can be used to create groups and subgroups of information, which influence how respondents process Web questionnaires. Following and also Schwarz, Grayson, & Knäuper, 1998) we argue that respondents act as cooperative communicators who use formal features of the questionnaire to help guide them through the survey conversation. Using data from three Web surveys of random samples of Washington State University undergraduates, we found that when response options are placed in close graphical proximity to each other and separated from other options, respondents perceive visual subgroups of the categories, increasing the likelihood that they select an answer from each subgroup. We also found that graphical proximity creates subgroups with and without the use of category heading to describe the subgroups and that the addition of a verbal instruction to "please select the best answer" encouraged respondents to select one answer from each subgroup instead of overriding the effects of proximity. In addition, the effects of grouping were consistent when the subgroups were positioned either vertically or horizontally in relation to each other. Lastly, we found that the effects of visual grouping are consistent across both opinion-and behavior/fact-based questions, although the effects appear to be greater on opinion-based questions. Our findings contribute to the increasing evidence that both verbal and visual languages influence how respondents process and respond to surveys. Because respondents interpret the verbal and graphical features of survey questionnaires as relevant to answering the survey, inadvertent or stylistic design changes can influence how respondents process and respond to survey questions.