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Cognitive burden of survey questions and response times: a psycholinguistic experiment
[journal article]
Abstract An important objective in survey question design is to write clear questions that respondents find easy to understand and to answer. This contribution identifies the factors that influence question clarity. Theoretical and empirical evidence from psycholinguistics suggests that specific text feature... view more
An important objective in survey question design is to write clear questions that respondents find easy to understand and to answer. This contribution identifies the factors that influence question clarity. Theoretical and empirical evidence from psycholinguistics suggests that specific text features (e.g., low-frequency words, left-embedded syntax) cause comprehension difficulties and impose a high cognitive burden on respondents. To examine the effect of seven different text features on question clarity, an online experiment was conducted in which well-formulated questions were compared to suboptimal counterparts. The cognitive burden of the questions was assessed with response times. Data quality was compared in terms of drop-out rates and survey satisficing behavior. The results show that at least six of the text features are relevant for the clarity of a question. We provide a detailed explanation of these text features and advise survey designers to avoid them when crafting questions.... view less
Keywords
cognition; survey; language; questionnaire; data quality; psycholinguistics; response behavior; survey research; understanding
Classification
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Document language
English
Publication Year
2010
Page/Pages
p. 1003-1020
Journal
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24 (2010) 7
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1602
ISSN
1099-0720
Status
Preprint; peer reviewed
Licence
Deposit Licence - No Redistribution, No Modifications