Web Survey Design: Paging versus Scrolling

A key choice in the design of Web surveys is whether to placethe survey questions in a multitude of short pages or in longscrollable pages. There are advantages and disadvantages ofeach approach, but little empirical evidence to guide the choice.In 2003 we conducted a survey of over 21,000 undergraduate students.Ten percent of the 10,000 respondents were directed to the scrollableversion of the survey, containing a single form for each ofthe major sections. The balance was assigned to the paging version,in which questions were presented to be visible without scrolling.The instrument contained a maximum of 268 possible questions,including topics that varied in sensitivity and desirability.The survey also permitted comparison of the effect of skip patternsby implementing skip instructions and hyperlinks in the scrollabledesign, and also recorded time at the end of each of the fivetopical sections. Differences between designs are evaluatedin terms of various forms of nonresponse, univariate and bivariatemeasurement properties, and proxies for respondent burden.