Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2019

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Volume

21

Issue

8:e12811

First Page

1

Last Page

9

DOI of Original Publication

10.2196/12811

Comments

Originally published at https://doi.org/10.2196/12811

Funded in part by the VCU Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund.

Date of Submission

October 2019

Abstract

Background: Although Web-based questionnaires are an efficient, increasingly popular mode of data collection, their utility is often challenged by high participant dropout. Researchers can gain insight into potential causes of high participant dropout by analyzing the dropout patterns.

Objective: This study proposed the application of and assessed the use of user-specified and existing hypothesis testing methods in a novel setting—survey dropout data—to identify phases of higher or lower survey dropout.

Methods: First, we proposed the application of user-specified thresholds to identify abrupt differences in the dropout rate. Second, we proposed the application of 2 existing hypothesis testing methods to detect significant differences in participant dropout. We assessed these methods through a simulation study and through application to a case study, featuring a questionnaire addressing decision-making surrounding cancer screening.

Results: The user-specified method set to a low threshold performed best at accurately detecting phases of high attrition in both the simulation study and test case application, although all proposed methods were too sensitive.

Conclusions: The user-specified method set to a low threshold correctly identified the attrition phases. Hypothesis testing methods, although sensitive at times, were unable to accurately identify the attrition phases. These results strengthen the case for further development of and research surrounding the science of attrition.

Rights

© Camille J Hochheimer, Roy T Sabo, Robert A Perera, Nitai Mukhopadhyay, Alex H Krist. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

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VCU Biostatistics Publications

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