Effects of showcards on responses in face-to-face surveys

Presenter: Violetta Parutis, ISER, University of Essex

Author: Violetta Parutis

Co-author(s): Annette Jäckle and Caroline Roberts

There is currently very little empirical evidence on how showcards are used in surveys and what effect they have on response. Some face-to-face surveys use these visual aids to reduce the cognitive demands on memory by letting the respondent read response options instead of having to remember them. However, showcards could also make the task of answering survey questions more complex, as the respondent has to listen to the interviewer and read the showcards (at the same time). In this paper we use experimental data from the Understanding Society Innovation Panel, which contrasted showcard and no-showcard versions of questions. We have tested 54 items using Wave 2 Innovation Panel data and 14 items using Wave 1 and 2 Innovation Panel data. Using Chi-squared and logit test statistics we calculate whether response distributions are different between showcard and no-showcard conditions and whether the effect of showcards is different for respondents with different levels of cognitive ability. Results so far suggest that showcards only rarely affect responses. Further analyses will include examining whether the use of showcards affects the response times for questions. We also plan to replicate the analyses on an experiment of the European Social Survey, and results will be presented at the conference.