Are Scale Direction Effects the Same in Different Survey Modes? Comparison of a Face-to-Face, a Telephone, and an Online Survey Experiment

Abstract

A number of previous studies have shown that the direction of rating scales may affect the distribution of responses. There is also considerable evidence that the cognitive process of answering a survey question differ by survey mode, which suggests that scale direction effects may interact with mode effects. The aim of this study was to explore scale direction effect differences between experimental data collected by face-to-face, phone, and online interviews. Three different scales were used in the survey. Few signs of scale direction effects were found in the interviewer-administered surveys, while in the online survey, in the case of the 0–10 scale, responses were affected by the direction of the scale. The anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic may explain these mode differences and the results suggest that the theory provides a better theoretical ground than satisficing theory in the case of scalar questions.