Presentation Format Differences in Factorial Surveys

Kurzfassung/Abstract

This study is devoted to an analysis of presentation format differences in factorial survey experiments by the example of fear of crime as conceptualized by broken windows theory (Wilson & Kelling, 1982; Kelling & Coles, 1996). Guided by approaches from the psychology of cognition, we aim at a systematic comparison of aspects of the processing of factorial survey experiments based either on written or visual vignettes. The results of our study show that dropout rates do not differ between presentation formats while processing time and self-reported fatigue are reduced when using visual vignettes.