Do attention check questions affect how people respond to surveys?

What is it about?

Attention checks are widely used in surveys. Because they can induce a more deliberative mindset in survey respondents, they may change the way respondents answer survey questions, posing a threat to scale validity (i.e. how accurate people's responses are). Fortunately, our results showed no evidence that they affect scale validity in different tests across two types of attention checks.

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Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Because attention checks are widely used, the potential of their threat to scale validity is critical. These findings showing that attention checks are not a treat. This allows researchers to justify the use of attention checks and advances our use and understanding of survey methods.