Identifying the types of insufficient effort responders
Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Surveys are used with increasing frequency in today’s workforce. Ensuring accurate conclusions depends on the data quality obtained from surveys. Insufficient Effort Responding is a unique and underappreciated threat to validity. Insufficient Effort Responding (IER) occurs when respondents answer survey items without paying attention to the item content. While being regarded as a minor problem by HR professionals (Liu et al., 2013), research indicates that IER negatively impacts the quality of data and can confound the statistical conclusions drawn from the data. The exact impact of IER on statistical conclusions depends on the type of IER in which the respondent engaged. Random IER occurs when the respondent uses the whole scale to respond and is more likely related to type II error (Meade & Craig, 2012). Patterned IER occurs when the respondent selects one response option (e.g., “strongly agree”) for many items in a row and is more likely related to type I error (Meade & Craig, 2012). Conscientious responders do not engage in IER. An understanding of IER categories will provide a foundation for additional research studying the exact impact of IER on statistical conclusions. This study assesses IER within five archival data sets: two from the southeastern U.S. workforce and three from a southeastern U.S. university. The frequency and types of Insufficient Effort Responders will be assessed. Preliminary results will be presented.
Date
10-22-2016
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
posters
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Identifying the types of insufficient effort responders
Surveys are used with increasing frequency in today’s workforce. Ensuring accurate conclusions depends on the data quality obtained from surveys. Insufficient Effort Responding is a unique and underappreciated threat to validity. Insufficient Effort Responding (IER) occurs when respondents answer survey items without paying attention to the item content. While being regarded as a minor problem by HR professionals (Liu et al., 2013), research indicates that IER negatively impacts the quality of data and can confound the statistical conclusions drawn from the data. The exact impact of IER on statistical conclusions depends on the type of IER in which the respondent engaged. Random IER occurs when the respondent uses the whole scale to respond and is more likely related to type II error (Meade & Craig, 2012). Patterned IER occurs when the respondent selects one response option (e.g., “strongly agree”) for many items in a row and is more likely related to type I error (Meade & Craig, 2012). Conscientious responders do not engage in IER. An understanding of IER categories will provide a foundation for additional research studying the exact impact of IER on statistical conclusions. This study assesses IER within five archival data sets: two from the southeastern U.S. workforce and three from a southeastern U.S. university. The frequency and types of Insufficient Effort Responders will be assessed. Preliminary results will be presented.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology