More on Save Survey Buttons

In the previous article, we took a look at some of the benefits of adding a “Save Survey” button to your survey. They allow should potentially improve your response rate, may reduce stress on the respondent, and should help you avoid central tendency bias that occurs when a respondent is rushing through a survey. Today we’ll look at some of the weaknesses of adding this type of feature, and discuss whether or not a “save survey” button is right for you.

Time as a Variable Many researchers forget how important time can be when it comes to data collection. There is a chance – albeit small depending on the time you allow a respondent to complete a survey – that their opinions have changed from the moment they saved their survey to the time they finish it. It’s unlikely this will have much of an effect, but it may have some effect, and that could change how reliable your survey data is.

Questions as a Variable It’s possible for some questions to affect responses to other questions. When the respondent saves their survey and comes back to it later, that effect may not be present, because they are experiencing the survey like a new survey again. Similarly, they may have forgotten their previous answers or otherwise feel differently now that they are no longer in a rush, and that could cause the questions themselves to change the data.

Annoyance at Reminders It’s not uncommon for people to save their surveys out of laziness. The reminder emails that are sent to those that did not complete a survey could then irritate the respondents, changing the way that they answer the remaining questions when they finally get back to the survey. Central Tendency to Close it Out Similarly, after a while passes and the respondent realizes that they have lost interest in completing the survey, they may come back to the survey later and answer closer to central tendency simply to finish the survey and receive the incentive.

When your sample is almost done with the survey anyway, the likelihood that they go back and give the few remaining questions a great deal of thought is slim.

Finally, there are mixed reports about whether or not respondents even go back to a survey after it has been saved. Many simply forget about it or ignore it until the survey time period is over. Overall, including a save button in your surveys is important, because it provides an added level of convenience for the user. But researchers should always note that even something as simple as a save button could cause problems with data collection, and you should check the data whenever you can to see if there is any evidence of those issues.