Visiting Item Non-responses in Internet Survey Data Collection

Abstract

A widely used technique in internet surveys is ‘forced answering’, which requires respondents to enter an ‘appropriate’ response before they are allowed to proceed to the next survey question. Forced answering virtually eliminates sources of respondent error due to item non-response. However, using forced answering might cause respondents to opt out entirely or break off early in the survey, which would increase non-response error. It has been suggested that one way around this is to provide a ‘prefer not to answer’ (PNA) option if forced answering is used, which would allow respondents to continue without providing a response to each question. This study examines effects on item non-response rates of using forced answering and ‘prefer not to answer’ in internet surveys. Findings reveal that use of PNA is not a perfect substitute for leaving questions blank, which brings into question the equivalency of response options that allow internet survey respondents to bypass answering questions and quality versus quantity tradeoffs associated with internet survey design choices.