PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

*****Volltextdokument auf Wunsch der Autoren gelöscht***** Web surveys technically allow providing feedback to respondents based on their previous responses. This personalized feedback may not only beused to target follow-up questions, it also allows test results to be returned immediately to respondents. This paper argues that the possibility of learning something about themselves increases respondents’ motivation and possibly the accuracy of responses. While past studies mainly concentrate on the effects of providing study results on future response rates, thus far survey research lacks of theoretical and empirical contributions on the effects of personalized, immediate, feedback on response behavior. To test this, we implemented a randomized trial in the context of the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) in 2014, providing feedback regarding the respondents’ personality tests (Big-Five personality inventory) to a subgroup of the sample. Results show moderate differences in response behavior between experimental and control group (item nonresponse, response styles, internal consistency, socially desirable responding, corrective answers, and response times). In addition, we find that respondents of the experimental group report higher levels of satisfaction with the survey.