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Do respondents' commitments improve data quality in opt-in online surveys? An international experiment on participants’ attentiveness, cheating, satisficing, and skipping
Sociological Methods & Research
Abstract
Online surveys are increasingly the norm in public opinion research. Self-administered internet surveys present opportunities, but also specific risks for data quality. In search of solutions, scholars are returning to commitment as one way of encouraging participants to provide accurate responses. This article provides an extensive study of commitment as a potential method for improving data quality in the context of opt-in online surveys. Theoretically, I argue that the effectiveness of commitment in motivating good conduct depends on respondents’ material and immaterial cost-benefit calculations. In an experimental survey in 2021 including more than 32,000 respondents from the general populations of 10 countries worldwide, I find that commitments make participants less likely to cheat on knowledge questions, but are ineffective or even counterproductive with respect to respondents’ attentiveness, satisficing, and skipping. Researchers should thus use commitments carefully and selectively, particularly in the context of opt-in online surveys.
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