Survey data quality: Does verbal ability and text readability matter?

Abstract

This study examined data quality by levels of respondent verbal ability and grade level reading estimates of survey text. Results indicate that students with low verbal ability (relative to their college peers) were significantly more likely to take longer to complete each screen, skip items, break-off from the survey, "skip through" screens, and straight-line items. The estimates of grade level read-ability were accurate in predicting the occurrence of straight-lining, but not other suspicious data.