A comparison of World-Wide Web and paper-and-pencil personality questionnaires.

Full Abstract

Does the manifestation of response set effects in World-Wide Web (WWW) questionnaire responses differ from that in paper-and-pencil (PP) questionnaire responses? Two thousand six hundred and forty-nine volunteers responded to a WWW questionnaire, and 458 volunteers responded to a PP questionnaire consisting of five personality scales. Five response sets were examined. For four of them--random response, item nonresponse, extreme response, and acquiescent response--no statistically significant differences between PP and WWW data were found. The PP administration elicited a statistically higher number of errors (uncodable responses), although eta 2 was less than .02. An analysis of interitem and interscale correlations did not differentiate WWW and PP data. Data from the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, the Perfectionist Self-Presentation Scale, and the Computer Anxiety Scale did not differentiate WWW and PP data in terms of either means or scale reliabilities. It was concluded that WWW data may be comparable to PP data and that the WWW is a potentially useful and valid data collection tool.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Pettit, Frances Annie (FA);

Affiliation: York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. pettitconsulting(-atsign-)rogers.com

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Behavior research methods, instruments, & computers : a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc (Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Feb; vol 34 (issue 1) : pp 50-4

Dates: Created 2002/06/13; Completed 2002/06/24; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12060990, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.