“I know what you’re going to ask me” Why respondents don’t read survey questions

Tracking respondents' eyes while they complete a survey reveals that (a) they do not read instructions, survey questions, and answer options carefully enough, investing only as little as 32% of the required time; (b) their attention diminishes over the course of the survey; and (c) their self-reports of the survey experience do not reflect actual survey completion behavior.

Introduction

Inattentive survey respondents can undermine the validity of survey research. Inattention is more likely in online surveys than in conventional paper and pencil surveys because of the high psychological distance between the survey administrators and the respondents and because of the ease of responding (Johnson, 2005). Market and social research companies try to identify inattentive respondents using so-called instructional manipulation checks (Paas, Dolnicar, & Karlsson, 2018): questions that can only be answered correctly if the respondent is paying attention. Failing instructional manipulation checks leads to the removal of inattentive respondents from the data set. Because many respondents fail such...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands