Trap questions in online surveys: Results from three web survey experiments

Abstract

This study examines the use of trap questions as indicators of data quality in online surveys. Trap questions are intended to identify respondents who are not paying close attention to survey questions, which would mean that they are providing sub-optimal responses to not only the trap question itself but to other questions included in the survey. We conducted three experiments using an online non-probability panel. In the first experiment, we examine whether there is any difference in responses to surveys with one trap question as those that have two trap questions. In the second study, we examine responses to surveys with trap questions of varying difficulty. In the third experiment, we test the level of difficulty, the placement of the trap question, and other forms of attention checks. In all studies, we correlate the responses to the trap question(s) with other data quality checks, most of which were derived from the literature on satisficing. Also, we compare the responses to several substance questions by the response to the trap questions. This would tell us whether participants who failed the trap questions gave consistently different answers from those who passed the trap questions. We find that the rate of passing/failing various trap questions varies widely, from 27% to 87% among the types we tested. We also find evidence that some types of trap questions are more significantly correlated with other data quality measures.