Survey Attention and Self-Reported Political Behavior

Survey research methodology is evolving rapidly, as new technologies provide new opportunities. One of the areas of innovation regards the development of online interview best practices, and the advancement of methods that allow researchers to measure the attention that subjects are devoting to the survey task. Reliable measurement of subject attention can yield important information about the quality of the survey response. In this paper, we take advantage of an innovative survey we conducted in 2018, in which we directly connect survey responses to administrative data, allowing us to directly assess the association between survey attention and response quality. We show that attentive survey subjects are more likely to provide accurate survey responses regarding a number of behaviors and attributes that we can validate with our administrative data. The best strategy to deal with inattentive respondents, however, depends on the correlation between respondent attention and the outcome of interest.

Enhancing Self-Administered Questionnaire Response Quality Using Code of Conduct Reminders

A key challenge for self-administered questionnaires (SaQ) is ensuring quality responses in the absence of a marketing professional providing direct guidance on issues as they arise for respondents. While numerous approaches to improving SaQ response quality have been investigated including validity checks, interactive design, and instructional manipulation checks, these are primarily targeted at situations where expected responses are of a factual nature or stated preferences. These interventions have not been evaluated in scenarios that require higher levels of engagement and judgment from respondents. While professional marketers are guided by codes of conduct, there is no equivalent code of conduct for SaQ respondents. This is particularly salient for SaQ that require higher levels of reflection and judgment, since in the absence of professional guidance, respondents rely more on their individual ethical ideologies and experience, leaving SaQ responses potentially devoid of the standards that normally set the expectations around data quality for marketing professionals. As marketing professionals are unable to provide guidance directly in a SaQ context, the approach used in this study is to offer varying levels of professional marketing guidance indirectly through specific codes of conduct reminders that are easily consumable by SaQ participants. We demonstrate that reminders and ethical ideologies moderate the relationship between the participant’s experience with SaQ and compliance with a code of conduct. Specifically, SaQ respondents produce fewer code of conduct infractions when receiving reminders than the control group, and this improves even more when the reminders coincide with the SaQ task. The paper concludes with implications for theory and practice.

CD8+ T Cell Response Quality Is Related to Parasite Control in an Animal Model of Single and Mixed Chronic Trypanosoma cruzi Infections

Chagas disease (ChD) is a chronic infection caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. This highly diverse intracellular parasite is classified into seven genotypes or discrete typing units (DTUs) and they overlap in geographic ranges, vectors, and clinical characteristics. Although studies have suggested that ChD progression is due to a decline in the immune response quality, a direct relationship between T cell responses and disease outcome is still unclear. To investigate the relationship between parasite control and immune T cell responses, we used two distinct infection approaches in an animal model to explore the histological and parasitological outcomes and dissect the T cell responses in T. cruzi-infected mice. First, we performed single infection experiments with DA (TcI) or Y (TcII) T. cruzi strains to compare the infection outcomes and evaluate its relationship with the T cell response. Second, because infections with diverse T. cruzi genotypes can occur in naturally infected individuals, mice were infected with the Y or DA strain and subsequently reinfected with the Y strain. We found different infection outcomes in the two infection approaches used. The single chronic infection showed differences in the inflammatory infiltrate level, while mixed chronic infection by different T. cruzi DTUs showed dissimilarities in the parasite loads. Chronically infected mice with a low inflammatory infiltrate (DA-infected mice) or low parasitemia and parasitism (Y/Y-infected mice) showed increases in early-differentiated CD8+ T cells, a multifunctional T cell response and lower expression of inhibitory receptors on CD8+ T cells. In contrast, infected mice with a high inflammatory infiltrate (Y-infected mice) or high parasitemia and parasitism (DA/Y-infected mice) showed a CD8+ T cell response distinguished by an increase in late-differentiated cells, a monofunctional response, and enhanced expression of inhibitory receptors. Overall, our results demonstrated that the infection outcomes caused by single or mixed T. cruzi infection with different genotypes induce a differential immune CD8+ T cell response quality. These findings suggest that the CD8+ T cell response might dictate differences in the infection outcomes at the chronic T. cruzi stage. This study shows that the T cell response quality is related to parasite control during chronic T. cruzi infection.

Response time and response time variability as indicators of response quality during static automated perimetry

Purpose Perimetry is a both demanding and strenuous examination method that is often accompanied by signs of fatigue, leading to false responses and thus incorrect results. Therefore, it is essential to monitor the response quality. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the response time (RT) and its variability (RTV) as quality indicators during static automated perimetry. Methods Size III Goldmann stimuli (25.7′) were shown with the OCTOPUS 900 perimeter in four visual field locations with 13 different stimulus luminance levels (0.04–160 cd/m2). An increased rate of false-positive and false-negative catch trials (25% each) served to monitor the response quality simultaneously together with response time recording. Data evaluation was divided into global and individual analysis. For global analysis, the agreement indices (AI, agreement between time periods with an increased number of false responses to catch trials and time periods with pathological response to time-based values set into relation to time periods in which only one of the two criteria was considered pathological) and for individual analysis, the Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated. Ophthalmologically normal subjects with a visual acuity ≥ 0.8, and a maximum spherical/cylindrical ametropia of ± 8.00/2.50 dpt were included. Results Forty-eight subjects (18 males, 30 females, age 22–78 years) were examined. The total number of false responses to catch trials was (median/maximum): 6/82. RT and RTV were compared to the occurrence of incorrect responses to catch trials. The resulting individual Spearman correlation coefficients (median/maximum) were for RT: ρRT = 0.05/0.35 and for RTV: ρRTV = 0.27/0.61. The global analysis of the RTV showed agreement indices (median/maximum) of AIRTV = 0.14/0.47. Conclusions According to this study, an increased portion of catch trials is suitable as a verification tool for possible response quality indicators. The RTV is a promising parameter for indicating the response quality.

Probing in online mixed-device surveys: Is a research messenger layout more effective than a traditional online layout, especially on mobile devices?

This article compares the effectiveness of a research messenger layout to a traditional online layout with regards to probing. Responses to different types of probes (explanation, elaboration and category selection probes) were examined in terms of length and quality, measured by number of characters, number of themes, and an indicator for response quality. The research messenger layout, regardless of device being used, had a negative effect on both response length, number of themes and response quality. Further, we found that in both the traditional and research messenger layout, using a mobile device negatively affects the number of characters and themes used in probed responses. We conclude that probing is most effective when a traditional survey is completed on a computer. The research messenger layout was not able to generate responses of similar quality compared to the traditional layout, regardless of device being used.

Identifying Outliers in Response Quality Assessment by Using Multivariate Control Charts Based on Kernel Density Estimation

When monitoring industrial processes, a Statistical Process Control tool, such as a multivariate Hotelling T 2 chart is frequently used to evaluate multiple quality characteristics. However, research into the use of T 2 charts for survey fieldwork–essentially a production process in which data sets collected by means of interviews are produced–has been scant to date. In this study, using data from the eighth round of the European Social Survey in Belgium, we present a procedure for simultaneously monitoring six response quality indicators and identifying outliers: interviews with anomalous results. The procedure integrates Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) with a T 2 chart, so that historical “in-control” data or reference to the assumption of a parametric distribution of the indicators is not required. In total, 75 outliers (4.25%) are iteratively removed, resulting in an in-control data set containing 1,691 interviews. The outliers are mainly characterized by having longer sequences of identical answers, a greater number of extreme answers, and against expectation, a lower item nonresponse rate. The procedure is validated by means of ten-fold cross-validation and comparison with the minimum covariance determinant algorithm as the criterion. By providing a method of obtaining in-control data, the present findings go some way toward a way to monitor response quality, identify problems, and provide rapid feedbacks during survey fieldwork.

Using memes in online surveys to engage and motivate respondents

This study explored the influence of Internet memes, specifically image macros of animals with motivational captions, on survey respondents’ engagement with the survey-taking experience and subsequent data quality. A web-based field experiment was conducted with online survey respondents from two sample sources, one crowdsourced, and one commercially managed online panel. Half of the respondents from each sample source were randomly selected to see the memes at various points throughout the survey; the other half did not. Direct and indirect measures of survey engagement and response quality were used to assess effectiveness of the memes. Quantitative results were inconclusive, with few significant differences found in measures of engagement and data quality between respondents in the meme or control condition in either sample source. However, qualitative open-ended comments from respondents who saw the memes in both sample groups revealed that memes provide respondents a fun break and relief from the cognitive burdens of answering online survey questions. In conclusion, memes represent a relatively inexpensive and easy way for survey researchers to connect with respondents and show appreciation for their time and effort.