Is respondents’ inattention in online surveys a major issue for research?

Titolo Rivista Economia agro-alimentare
Autori/Curatori Riccardo Vecchio, Gerarda Caso, Luigi Cembalo, Massimiliano Borrello
Anno di pubblicazione 2020 Fascicolo 2020/1
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 18 P. 1-18 Dimensione file 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/ecag1-2020oa10069
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Participant attentiveness may represent a major concern for all researchers using online self-report survey data, as findings from non-diligent participants add noise and can significantly decrease results reliability. Therefore, attention checks have become a popular method in survey design across social sciences to capture careless or insufficient-effort of respondents, thus increasing quality of samples and the internal validity of the research. The aim of this note is to offer an overview and categorization of the different techniques adopted to flag inattentive respondents and present the potential drawbacks of not considering the issue in social sciences research.

Participant attentiveness may represent a major concern for all researchers using online self-report survey data, as findings from non-diligent participants add noise and can significantly decrease results reliability. Therefore, attention checks have become a popular method in survey design across social sciences to capture careless or insufficient-effort of respondents, thus increasing quality of samples and the internal validity of the research. The aim of this note is to offer an overview and categorization of the different techniques adopted to flag inattentive respondents and present the potential drawbacks of not considering the issue in social sciences research.

Parole chiave:Self-report survey data, Attention checks, Careless responding, Screener questions

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Riccardo Vecchio, Gerarda Caso, Luigi Cembalo, Massimiliano Borrello, Is respondents’ inattention in online surveys a major issue for research? in "Economia agro-alimentare" 1/2020, pp 1-18, DOI: 10.3280/ecag1-2020oa10069