A Method for Detecting Invalid Responses

• In Event: 43.071 - Survey Research: Analyzing Items

Abstract

Invalid responses on surveys pose a serious threat to the validity of our inferences. Social desirability bias is characterized by inaccurate responses to survey items due to fear of loss of anonymity and/or the sensitivity of the survey topic (Tourangeau & Yan, 2007). Recent research has shown that young adults may give invalid responses regardless of anonymity if they distrust the survey-granting institution or are fearful of the consequences of the survey results (Clairmont, Wolf, & Maul, 2018). In this paper, we present a method that can be used to identify invalid responses made by young adults on school surveys, thus providing researchers with more confidence in the accuracy of their findings.

Authors

• Melissa Gordon Wolf, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Albert Anthony Clairmont, University of California- Santa Barbara

• Andrew Maul, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Michael James Furlong, University of California - Santa Barbara