Detecting computer-generated random responding in online questionnaires: An extension of Dupuis, Meier & Cuneo (2019) on dichotomous data

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Serval ID
serval:BIB_19FB6C511E44
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Detecting computer-generated random responding in online questionnaires: An extension of Dupuis, Meier & Cuneo (2019) on dichotomous data
Journal
Personality and Individual Differences
Author(s)
Dupuis Marc, Meier Emanuele, Gholam-Rezaee Mehdi, Gmel Gerhard, Strippoli Marie-Pierre F., Renaud Olivier
ISSN
0191-8869
Publication state
Published
Issued date
04/2020
Volume
157
Pages
109812
Language
english
Abstract
Some authors recently underlined the existence of programs generating invalid responses in online surveys as an emerging threat for the different
crowdsourced research fields (e.g., botnets, form fillers or survey bots). Accordingly, online data research might include computer-generated sets of
responses representing invalid data at risk of largely distorting study results. Several statistical indices exist in order to detect problematic data. In line with a
previous study that compared these indices in Likert-type scale questionnaire data, this study purported to extend the analyses with dichotomous-itemed
questionnaires. Three samples of about more than 2,000 participants were mixed with different proportions (i.e., 5% to 50%) of simulated data to mimic their
effect. Then, seven indices were compared in terms of correct detections of non-human response sets. Consistent with former findings, three indices resulted
in superior correct detection rates: response coherence, the Mahalanobis distance and the person-total correlation. Two of them can easily be computed
using basic statistical sofware. The current study findings represent an encouragement to use them in priority as routine for data screening.
Keywords
General Psychology
Web of science
Create date
30/04/2020 12:40
Last modification date
04/05/2020 7:05
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