IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v11y2022i2p31-d727511.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Persistence and Attrition among Participants in a Multi-Page Online Survey Recruited via Reddit’s Social Media Network

Author

Listed:
  • Dirk H.R. Spennemann

    (School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University, P.O. Box 789, Albury, NSW 2640, Australia)

Abstract

Participant attrition is a major concern for the validity of longer or complex surveys. Unlike paper-based surveys, which may be discarded even if partially completed, multi-page online surveys capture responses from all completed pages until the time of abandonment. This can result in different item response rates, with pages earlier in the sequence showing more completions than later pages. Using data from a multi-page online survey administered to cohorts recruited on Reddit, this paper analyses the pattern of attrition at various stages of the survey instrument and examines the effects of survey length, time investment, survey format and complexity, and survey delivery on participant attrition. The participant attrition rate (PAR) differed between cohorts, with cohorts drawn from Reddit showing a higher PAR than cohorts targeted by other means. Common to all was that the PAR was higher among younger respondents and among men. Changes in survey question design resulted in the greatest rise in PAR irrespective of age, gender or cohort.

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk H.R. Spennemann, 2022. "Persistence and Attrition among Participants in a Multi-Page Online Survey Recruited via Reddit’s Social Media Network," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-35, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:2:p:31-:d:727511
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/2/31/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/2/31/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:2:p:31-:d:727511. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.