Skip Navigation


Public Opinion Quarterly Advance Access first published online on February 21, 2007
This version published online on February 28, 2007
Public Opinion Quarterly, doi:10.1093/poq/nfl039
This Article
Right arrow Summary
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
71/1/113    most recent
nfl039v3
nfl039v2
nfl039v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Christian, L. M.
Right arrow Articles by Smyth, J. D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Helping Respondents Get It Right the First Time: The Influence of Words, Symbols, and Graphics in Web Surveys

Leah Melani Christian, Don A. Dillman and Jolene D. Smyth

Address correspondence to Leah Melani; e-mail: leahmc{at}uga.edu

We utilize and apply visual design theory to experimentally test ways to improve the likelihood that web respondents report date answers in a particular format desired by the researcher, thus reducing possible deleterious effects of error messages or requests for corrections. These experiments were embedded in a series of web surveys of random samples of university students. We seek to examine the sequential and cumulative effects of visually manipulating the size and proximity of the answer spaces, the use of symbols instead of words, the verbal language of the question stem, and the graphical location of the symbolic instruction. Our results show that the successive series of visual language manipulations improve respondents’ use of the desired format (two digits for the month and four digits for the year) from 45 percent to 96 percent. These results suggest that writing effective questions for web surveys may depend as much or more on the presentation of the answer categories/spaces as the question wording itself.

The page numbers have been corrected.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Public Opin QHome page
J. D. Smyth, D. A. Dillman, L. M. Christian, and M. Mcbride
Open-Ended Questions in Web Surveys: Can Increasing the Size of Answer Boxes and Providing Extra Verbal Instructions Improve Response Quality?
Public Opin Q, June 1, 2009; 73(2): 325 - 337.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Social Science Computer ReviewHome page
M. Fuchs
Differences in the Visual Design Language of Paper-and-Pencil Surveys Versus Web Surveys: A Field Experimental Study on the Length of Response Fields in Open-Ended Frequency Questions
Social Science Computer Review, May 1, 2009; 27(2): 213 - 227.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Int J Public Opin ResHome page
M. Fuchs
Asking for Numbers and Quantities: Visual Design Effects in Paper&Pencil Surveys
Int. J. Public Opin. Res., March 1, 2009; 21(1): 65 - 84.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.