Tired of Survey Fatigue? Insufficient Effort Responding Due to Survey Fatigue

Abstract

Insufficient effort responding (IER) has been found to be prevalent in a variety of settings and have also been found to have major impacts on survey data quality. One way to prevent IER from occurring is by engaging in preventative measures to reduce different types of IER. One possible preventative measure that can be done to prevent IER is reducing the length of long surveys. To support this notion, this study looked at the effects of survey length and data quality.

Results indicated that long surveys can negatively impact data quality. Specifically, factor structures of measures placed at the end of a long survey may be negatively impacted. Additionally, the reliability of measures decreased when placed later in a long survey. Lastly, results indicated that total time to survey completion was positively related to answering quality assurance items designed to detect IER.