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

邮寄调查在调查研究人员中变得越来越受欢迎，因为它们可以以比电话调查更低的成本实现更好的覆盖率和回复率。然而，在使用邮寄调查时仍然存在挑战。这项研究项目将考察一个只得到最少研究关注的常见设计挑战：如何让受访者在没有计算机或面试者帮助的情况下正确导航跳过模式。这项研究将推动调查方法论中的视觉设计文献，从以前对个别项目的关注转向如何在问题中使用视觉设计的新焦点。因此，它有可能扩大我们对如何利用视觉设计来设计好的问卷，而不仅仅是好的问题的理解。来自多个学科和所有调查部门的研究人员将能够在他们自己的调查中利用这项研究的结果，将跳过错误降至最低，从而减少数据遗漏，增加统计能力。作为博士论文研究改进奖，支持有前途的学生建立一个强大的、独立的研究生涯。在没有计算机或面试者帮助的情况下，在邮件调查中未能正确导航跳过模式往往会导致数据丢失。最近，调查方法论将视觉科学和认知心理学的知识融入到如何在问卷设计中战略性地使用视觉设计的理解中。本研究采用实验设计来考察视觉设计特征对邮件调查中跳跃错误的影响，这些视觉设计特征在跳跃模式内的项目之间创造更强的分组和子分组。这项调查将从计算机化的递送序列文件中抽取内布拉斯加州居民作为样本。具体地说，这项研究将考察通过封闭或公共区域和缩进对问题进行分组如何影响跳过错误率。将会发出四份表格。控制表单将使所有问题位于相同的连续区域(由公共阴影背景建立)，所有问题从左边距开始。第二种形式具有相同的连续区域，但所有后续项目都将缩进。第三种形式的所有问题都将从左边距开始，但后续项目将位于与最初的馈送器问题不同的背景区域。最后，第四种形式将通过使用封闭式和缩进式两种方式来考察分组的综合效果。将根据答复者的特征(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)检查每个目标的跳过错误率。

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).