{"id":36672,"date":"2020-09-21T14:39:17","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T13:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsurvey.fluidhub.it\/randomization-increasing-data-quality-in-research\/"},"modified":"2022-08-09T07:31:17","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T06:31:17","slug":"randomization-increasing-data-quality-in-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idsurvey.com\/en\/randomization-increasing-data-quality-in-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Randomization: increasing data quality in research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Randomization is a very well known technique that can increase data quality in research and limit falsification.<\/strong>\u00a0Let\u2019s see how it works.<\/p>\n<p>Everybody knows that high quality data depends on\u00a0<strong>how and when you make questions.<\/strong>\u00a0Respondent\u2019s attention varies during the questionnaire invalidating answers and causing quality problems.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>What is randomization?<\/h2>\n<p>By analyzing respondents\u2019 behavior, researchers found out that some corrupting effects are actually really frequent:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Primary effect: people usually choose the first option in a long list of answers<\/li>\n<li>Recency effect: people usually choose choose the last option<\/li>\n<li>Attention span and question blocks: if the questionnaire is in blocks, the respondent will be inclined to answer to the second block of questions exactly as to the first one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Randomization<strong>\u00a0limits these effects<\/strong>\u00a0improving data quality. With this in mind, let\u2019s see some applications.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Types and applications to increase data quality in research<\/h2>\n<p>There are 2 types of randomization:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Basic Randomization:<\/strong>\u00a0it involves all items that are rotating one with the other. \u201cDon\u2019t answer\u201d, \u201cOther\/specify\u201d or \u201cDon\u2019t know\u201d are usually excluded from the randomization and placed as last<\/li>\n<li><strong>Block randomization:<\/strong>\u00a0items are in blocks. Randomization involves both blocks and items within the blocks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>When to use it? When is it better (and more effective) to use it? And when is it irrelevant?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Firstly: you usually find randomization in\u00a0<strong>opinion surveys,<\/strong>\u00a0as election polls. In questions \u2013 like \u201cwho will you vote for?\u201d \u2013 answers are in random order. Another common use is for\u00a0<strong>surveys<\/strong>\u00a0to\u00a0<strong>evaluate products to guarantee data integrity.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Also, you can use it for<strong>\u00a0questions on personal information.<\/strong>\u00a0Really often a lot of respondents drop questionnaires because personal questions are not well distributed. That\u2019s why a simple randomization can\u00a0<strong>benefit not just the quality of data<\/strong>\u00a0but also\u00a0<em><strong>response rate.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>But when is it irrelevant? Let\u2019s see 3 scenarios:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>In demographic questions:<\/strong>\u00a0age, gender, date of birth\u2026randomization is irrelevant and may also be counterproductive as it requires a bigger effort for the respondent<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rate scales:<\/strong>\u00a0randomizing scale (like 1 to 5) is useless and may confuse the respondent<\/li>\n<li><strong>Long list of options:<\/strong>\u00a0when facing a long list of options it\u2019s easier to scroll them in a logic order (like alphabetic order) rather than in a random one.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>To sum up<\/h2>\n<p>Randomization\u00a0<strong>is helpful to minimize data corruption and improve data collection<\/strong>\u00a0in some surveys. It cannot guarantee zero risks for your results but it can be really helpful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moreover, with the majority of current software randomization can be automatically set<\/strong>\u00a0in any survey methodology\u00a0saving time to researchers and assuring a correct use of this technique.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><del><a href=\"https:\/\/www.idsurvey.com\/en\/demo-request\/\"> Discover IdSurvey&#8217;s powerful random engine! <\/a><\/del><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Randomization is a very well known technique that can increase data quality in research and limit falsification.\u00a0Let\u2019s see how it works. Everybody knows that high quality data depends on\u00a0how and when you make questions.\u00a0Respondent\u2019s attention varies during the questionnaire invalidating answers and causing quality problems. &nbsp; What is randomization? By analyzing respondents\u2019 behavior, researchers found [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":36276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wl_entities_gutenberg":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"wl_entity_type":[86],"class_list":["post-36672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-world","wl_entity_type-article"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v26.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Randomization: increasing data quality in research - IdSurvey<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Randomization is a very well known survey technique that can help you increasing data quality in research and make a difference in your data collection.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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