The Effects of Demand Characteristics on a Survey

Overview

Objectives My objective is to determine if, when a survey taker forms an interpretation of what a survey is testing, they will give different responses than they would if they did not think they knew what was being testing. Methods Google Forms, Google Sheets, Facebook, Instagram. A number of surveys were created that appeared to test the same topic, with changes in the way title and questions were worded. The surveys were posted to social media and each participant only took one of the surveys. The data from each survey was then collected into its own Google Sheet, and further sorted by a demographic relevant to the topic. The respondents who took the surveys titled Do Video Games Increase Aggression in Teens , and Do Video Games Calm Emotions in teens were stored in their own respective sheets, and then separated into the video game players, and non- video game players. Results Certain surveys did bring out specific responses depending on what hypothesis they alluded to. The results between demographics responding to the same survey varied as well. The non-video game players who took the survey that hinted the hypothesis was that video games lowered aggression, gave far more calm responses than aggressive ones. The video game players who took the same survey gave far more aggressive responses than calm ones. Conclusions Based on the results, I concluded that if a participant has an interpretation of what a survey is testing, they will give different results than if no interpretation was formed. Furthermore, the change in results is determined by the prior knowledge and beliefs that person has on the topic they think is being tested.

Competition history

• CSEF 2019 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry S0403

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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