Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2907–2927 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Quality and Quantity |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 28 Nov 2023 |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2024 |
Abstract
Web surveys completed on smartphones open novel ways for measuring respondents’ attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that are crucial for social science research and many adjacent research fields. In this study, we make use of the built-in microphones of smartphones to record voice answers in a smartphone survey and extract non-verbal cues, such as amplitudes and pitches, from the collected voice data. This allows us to predict respondents’ level of interest (i.e., disinterest, neutral, and high interest) based on their voice answers, which expands the opportunities for researching respondents’ engagement and answer behavior. We conducted a smartphone survey in a German online access panel and asked respondents four open-ended questions on political parties with requests for voice answers. In addition, we measured respondents’ self-reported survey interest using a closed-ended question with an end-labeled, seven-point rating scale. The results show a non-linear association between respondents’ predicted level of interest and answer length. Respondents with a predicted medium level of interest provide longer answers in terms of number of words and response times. However, respondents’ predicted level of interest and their self-reported interest are weakly associated. Finally, we argue that voice answers contain rich meta-information about respondents’ affective states, which are yet to be utilized in survey research.
Keywords
- Answer behavior, Interest prediction, Natural Language Processing, Open-ended questions, Smartphone, Voice recordings
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Mathematics(all)
- Statistics and Probability
- Social Sciences(all)
- General Social Sciences
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In: Quality and Quantity, Vol. 58, No. 3, 06.2024, p. 2907–2927.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The sound of respondents: predicting respondents’ level of interest in questions with voice data in smartphone surveys
AU - Höhne, Jan Karem
AU - Kern, Christoph
AU - Gavras, Konstantin
AU - Schlosser, Stephan
N1 - Funding Information: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. We acknowledge financial support by the German Science Foundation through the Collaborative Research Center 884 “Political Economy of Reforms” at the University of Mannheim in Germany (grant number: 139943784).
PY - 2024/6
Y1 - 2024/6
N2 - Web surveys completed on smartphones open novel ways for measuring respondents’ attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that are crucial for social science research and many adjacent research fields. In this study, we make use of the built-in microphones of smartphones to record voice answers in a smartphone survey and extract non-verbal cues, such as amplitudes and pitches, from the collected voice data. This allows us to predict respondents’ level of interest (i.e., disinterest, neutral, and high interest) based on their voice answers, which expands the opportunities for researching respondents’ engagement and answer behavior. We conducted a smartphone survey in a German online access panel and asked respondents four open-ended questions on political parties with requests for voice answers. In addition, we measured respondents’ self-reported survey interest using a closed-ended question with an end-labeled, seven-point rating scale. The results show a non-linear association between respondents’ predicted level of interest and answer length. Respondents with a predicted medium level of interest provide longer answers in terms of number of words and response times. However, respondents’ predicted level of interest and their self-reported interest are weakly associated. Finally, we argue that voice answers contain rich meta-information about respondents’ affective states, which are yet to be utilized in survey research.
AB - Web surveys completed on smartphones open novel ways for measuring respondents’ attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that are crucial for social science research and many adjacent research fields. In this study, we make use of the built-in microphones of smartphones to record voice answers in a smartphone survey and extract non-verbal cues, such as amplitudes and pitches, from the collected voice data. This allows us to predict respondents’ level of interest (i.e., disinterest, neutral, and high interest) based on their voice answers, which expands the opportunities for researching respondents’ engagement and answer behavior. We conducted a smartphone survey in a German online access panel and asked respondents four open-ended questions on political parties with requests for voice answers. In addition, we measured respondents’ self-reported survey interest using a closed-ended question with an end-labeled, seven-point rating scale. The results show a non-linear association between respondents’ predicted level of interest and answer length. Respondents with a predicted medium level of interest provide longer answers in terms of number of words and response times. However, respondents’ predicted level of interest and their self-reported interest are weakly associated. Finally, we argue that voice answers contain rich meta-information about respondents’ affective states, which are yet to be utilized in survey research.
KW - Answer behavior
KW - Interest prediction
KW - Natural Language Processing
KW - Open-ended questions
KW - Smartphone
KW - Voice recordings
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85177782846&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11135-023-01776-8
DO - 10.1007/s11135-023-01776-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85177782846
VL - 58
SP - 2907
EP - 2927
JO - Quality and Quantity
JF - Quality and Quantity
SN - 0033-5177
IS - 3
ER -