Title

Identifying the types of insufficient effort responders

Department

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology

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/

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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.