The Influence of Graphical and Symbolic Language Manipulations on Responses to Self-Administered Questions
Leah Melani Christian is 1a graduate research assistant in the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC) and the Department of Sociology at Washington State University (WSU), and Don A. Dillman is the Thomas S. Foley Distinguished Professor of Government and Public Policy and Regents’ Professor in the WSU Departments of Sociology and Community and Rural Sociology, and Deputy Director of the SESRC, Pullman, Washington 99164-4014. The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support provided for this research by the WSU Agricultural Research Center under Western Region Project W-183, the SESRC, the National Science Foundation Division of Science Resource Statistics, the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, and the Gallup Organization. Appreciation is also expressed to Thom Allen, who served as study director for collection of the data analyzed here.
Address correspondence to Don A. Dillman; e-mail: dillman{at}wsu.edu.
This article 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 survey of 1,042 university students. Significant differences were observed for most comparisons, providing support for all seven hypotheses. These results support the view 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.
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