Questionnaire layout and national culture in online psychometrics

Abstract

Abstract. Given the proliferation of online psychometric questionnaires on the Internet and other platforms, the design of online psychometrics becomes increasingly important to ensure good measurement properties. The current study reports four experiments testing how questionnaire layout and national culture affect people's responses to online questionnaires. Flow-and the disorientation scales for web navigation had good psychometric quality overall and across experimental manipulations of questionnaire layout, field dependence, national culture, response correction and question grouping. However, single-item layout (presenting one question at a time) had the advantage of faster completion than whole-form layout (presenting each page filled with items). Support was also found for the idea that whole form divides and thereby requires more attention to respond. Future research should be directed at online psychometrics on small and large displays.Keywords: psychometrics; online questionnaire; questionnaire layout; culture; dual tasking.Additional keywords: human-computer interaction, website, screen design. HighlightsDisorientation and flow scales for web navigation have good measurement quality Single-item layout leads to faster psychometric-questionnaire completion Single-item layout facilitates focusing attention in questionnaire completion National culture does not affect measurement quality 3