%0 Journal Article
%T Forced‐response in online surveys: Bias from reactance and an increase in sex‐specific dropout
%J Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
%D 2007
%A Stieger, Stefan
%A Reips, Ulf‐Dietrich
%A Voracek, Martin
%V 58
%N 11
%P 1653-1660
%X 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 />
%G 
%I John Wiley and Sons
%@ 1532-2882
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.20651