@article{ref1,
title="Forced‐response in online surveys: Bias from reactance and an increase in sex‐specific dropout",
journal="Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology",
year="2007",
author="Stieger, Stefan and Reips, Ulf‐Dietrich and Voracek, Martin",
volume="58",
number="11",
pages="1653-1660",
abstract="Due to computer technology, a forced-response can be easily achieved in online questionnaires and is frequently used to gather complete datasets. An Internet-based quasi-experiment was conducted on the student server at the University of Vienna to study the influence of forced-response on dropout, demographic reports, and the content of the results. Forced-response was shown to substantially increase dropout. In addition, forced-response interacted with reported sex in eliminating a naturally occurring sex difference in dropout that was observed for the questionnaire whenever responses did not need to be enforced. Also reported sex turned out to have a mediating effect on time of dropout: Men dropped out earlier than did women. Further analyses revealed a reactance effect, as predicted by reactance theory. It is concluded that data from online questionnaires with forced-response designs are in danger of being hampered by dropout and reactance.<p />",
language="",
issn="1532-2882",
doi="10.1002/asi.20651",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.20651"
}