Completion and Response Rate

Completion and Response Rate
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Completion and Response Rate
One of the most recurring terms in online surveys is response rate and completion rate. These two terms are quite important as they define how successful a survey was (Penwarden, 2014). The term completion rate refers to the total number of surveys that have been filled and tendered divided by the total number of initial respondents. This means that the completion statistic is used only for the individuals who have duly completed the survey and not those who showed a willingness to take part in the survey. This means that the high the completion rate percentage, the successful the survey is. In the case of an online survey, the completion rate is not calculated based on the number of people contacted but instead it is calculated based on the total number of people that took part in the survey (Nobel, 2015).
Although many people think that completion rate is the same as response rate, the truth is that the two terms are different. Response rate is used to denote the total number of individuals that successfully completed the survey divided by the number of individuals who compose the sum sample group. A response rate must always involve the total number of people contacted to take part in the survey. Due to the challenge in keeping tab of the actual number of people that received the survey questions and the ones that did not, it becomes hard to get a reliable response rate. The response rate is often impacted by various factors, key among them being the length of the survey questions. Research shows increasing the number of survey questions leads people to drop out of the research before completion.
In the case of the research by Lauer et al (2013), one could correct say that the 68.5% was impressive. In most cases, designing online research is complex. The complexity is brought first and foremost by the inability of the researcher to monitor the respondents (Sauro, 2011). Unlike in the other cases where one can supervise the respondent, online research is intricate as the researcher does not come into contact with the respondent and as such it is hard to monitor how respondents fill in the data. In the past, some researchers have put their completion rate as low as 10% and as such the 68.5% posted by Lauer et al was very impressive. This data shows that the researchers packaged the research interview questions in the right manner since the nature of the questions determines the willingness of the people to complete the research and hence the total research percentage (Brent, 2010). This knowledge is crucial for my career goals as it will give me the right knowledge on how to conduct surveys in various areas of my career growth.
In their research, Lauer et al talks about using technological affordances to treat survey participation as user experience. This element involves using the web to design an interface that keeps the participant engaged until the end of the survey. This practice comes out of the realization that respondents n...