Doctoral Research Dissertation: An Experiment to Examine the Effect of Visual Grouping in Helping Respondents Navigate Skip Patterns

邮件调查在调查研究人员中越来越受欢迎，因为它们可以以较低的成本实现更好的覆盖面和响应率。 然而，在使用邮件调查时仍然存在挑战。 这个研究项目将探讨一个常见的设计挑战，只收到最小的研究关注：如何让受访者正确导航跳过模式没有计算机或面试官的帮助。 这项研究将推动视觉设计文献的调查方法，从以前的重点放在个别项目，以一个新的重点如何视觉设计可以跨问题使用。 因此，它有可能拓宽我们对视觉设计如何用于设计好的问卷的理解，而不仅仅是好的问题。 来自多个学科和所有调查部门的研究人员将能够在自己的调查中利用这项研究的结果，以尽量减少跳跃错误，从而减少数据缺失并提高统计能力。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的，独立的研究生涯。未能正确导航跳过模式在邮件调查没有计算机或面试官的帮助下，往往会导致数据丢失。 最近，调查方法已经将视觉科学和认知心理学的知识融入到理解视觉设计如何在问卷设计中战略性地使用。 本研究采用了一个实验设计，研究视觉设计功能，创建更强的分组和分组之间的跳跃模式跳过错误的邮件调查项目的影响。 该调查将管理内布拉斯加州居民的样本从计算机化交付序列文件。 具体来说，本研究将探讨如何分组问题，通过外壳或共同的区域和缩进影响率的跳过错误。 将有四种形式发送。 对照表中的所有问题都位于同一个连续区域（由共同的阴影背景建立），所有问题都从左边开始。 第二个表单具有相同的连续区域，但所有后续项都将缩进。 第三种形式将所有的问题开始在左边距，但后续项目将在一个单独的背景区域从最初的馈线问题。 最后，第四种形式将通过使用包围和缩进来检查分组的组合效果。 每个目标的跳跃错误率将在受访者特征中进行检查（即，年龄、教育程度、识字率）和问题类型（即，回答选项的数量、后续问题的数量）。

Mail surveys are becoming more popular among survey researchers because they can achieve better coverage and response rates at a lower cost than can be achieved with telephone surveys. However, there are still challenges when using mail surveys. This research project will examine a common design challenge that has received only minimal research attention: how to get respondents to correctly navigate skip patterns without computer or interviewer assistance. The study will advance the visual design literature within survey methodology from its previous focus on individual items to a new focus on how visual design can be used across questions. As such, it has the potential to broaden our understanding of how visual design can be used to design good questionnaires, not just good questions. Researchers from multiple disciplines and across all survey sectors will be able to utilize findings from this research in their own surveys to minimize skip errors, thereby reducing missing data and increasing statistical power. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, support is provided to enable a promising student to establish a strong, independent research career.Failing to correctly navigate skip patterns in mail surveys without computer or interviewer assistance often results in missing data. Recently, survey methodology has incorporated knowledge from the vision sciences and cognitive psychology into understanding how visual design can be used strategically in questionnaire design. This study uses an experimental design to examine the effect of visual design features that create stronger grouping and subgrouping among items within skip patterns on skip errors in a mail survey. The survey will be administered to a sample of Nebraska residents drawn from the Computerized Delivery Sequence File. Specifically, this study will examine how grouping questions through enclosure or common region and indentation affects the rate of skip errors. There will be four forms sent out. The control form will have all of the questions located in the same continuous region (as established by a common shaded background) and all questions started at the left margin. The second form has the same continuous region but all follow-up items will be indented. The third form will have all questions start at the left margin, but the follow-up items will be in a separate background region from the initial feeder question. Finally, the fourth form will examine the combined effects of grouping through the use of both enclosure and indentation. Rates of skip errors for each objective will be examined across respondent characteristics (i.e., age, education, literacy) and question types (i.e., number of response options, number of follow-up questions).