Using heterogeneous sources of data and interpretability of prediction models to explain the characteristics of careless respondents in survey data

Abstract

Abstract Prior to further processing, completed questionnaires must be screened for the presence of careless respondents. Different people will respond to surveys in different ways. Some take the easy path and fill out the survey carelessly. The proportion of careless respondents determines the survey’s quality. As a result, identifying careless respondents is critical for the quality of obtained results. This study aims to explore the characteristics of careless respondents in survey data and evaluate the predictive power and interpretability of different types of data and indices of careless responding. The research question focuses on understanding the behavior of careless respondents and determining the effectiveness of various data sources in predicting their responses. Data from a three-month web-based survey on participants’ personality traits such as honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience was used in this study. Data for this study was taken from Schroeders et al.. The gradient boosting machine-based prediction model uses data from the answers, time spent for answering, demographic information on the respondents as well as some indices of careless responding from all three types of data. Prediction models were evaluated with tenfold cross-validation repeated a hundred times. Prediction models were compared based on balanced accuracy. Models’ explanations were provided with Shapley values. Compared with existing work, data fusion from multiple types of information had no noticeable effect on the performance of the gradient boosting machine model. Variables such as “I would never take a bribe, even if it was a lot”, average longstring, and total intra-individual response variability were found to be useful in distinguishing careless respondents. However, variables like “I would be tempted to use counterfeit money if I could get away with it” and intra-individual response variability of the first section of a survey showed limited effectiveness. Additionally, this study indicated that, whereas the psychometric synonym score has an immediate effect and is designed with the goal of identifying careless respondents when combined with other variables, it is not necessarily the optimal choice for fitting a gradient boosting machine model.