Thesis
A database and Javascript program test of Internet survey methodology: A close look at response rates and drop out rates
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2003
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/106
Abstract
The Internet has been a popular survey platform in recent years. But the use of the Internet to deploy online surveys also has some problems. The most common problem reported by previous Internet research is the low response rate. It is a value we can easily obtain while conducting an online survey, but of interest to us here are the hidden meanings behind the number. The purpose of this research is to develop a method to better analyze the response rates to see if there is an approach which will improve the Internet survey. To do this, the process of taking an Internet survey was first partitioned into four steps. Each step represents a situation that occurs while answering an online survey. A client side data collecting program was designed in this study to collect responses simultaneously as respondents answered the survey. Responses and corresponding time were collected once an answer was made on the survey page. With the new data collecting technique, all responses a respondent made were faithfully recorded along with the time the respondent made the response. The extra information such as drop out point, response time spent on each question, etc ... helped us better understand the Internet surveys. By testing response rates and drop out rates on different survey invitation methods, reward systems and survey presentation styles in this study, the result showed that the drop out rate is important when we were able to draw more respondents. It also demonstrated that different survey invitation methods and rewarding systems have an effect on motivating respondents to start an Internet survey whereas survey presentation styles have only a slight influence of retaining respondents to the end of a survey. The most important contribution of this study is that it validates the program we developed for observing respondents' responding behavior. Some future research opportunities are suggested, and with the technique we developed, we now have a better chance of understanding how to make the new survey platform more useful.
Metrics
1 File views/ downloads
40 Record Views
Details
- Title
- A database and Javascript program test of Internet survey methodology
- Creators
- Ching-Guo Wu
- Contributors
- Joey Blaine Reagan (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525120601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis