We will now ask you some screening questions...

Posted by Scott W. Spain on January 27, 2000 at 12:09:53:

I just participated in a Web survey for a big-name, high-profile research company. I thought it was very interesting that they started with the questionnaire with something to the effect of:

We will now ask you some screen questions to determine if you qualify and if your quota group is open...

Personally, I think this is a pretty poor practice. It felt like it could plant the idea into respondent's heads that they need to think about how they answer the questions to be able to participate.

Any other thoughts on this?

For the record: No, I didn't lie to anybody to get recruited. One of the screening questions was an industry security question. By honestly marking the "market research company" box I was terminated.

Follow Ups:

• Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Daniel Schulman 23:51:26 1/30/2000 (19)
  • Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Scott W. Spain 11:39:36 1/31/2000 (18)
    • Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Paul Curran 06:28:15 2/01/2000 (17)
      • Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Scott W. Spain 11:48:37 2/01/2000 (16)
        • Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Daniel Schulman 00:21:12 2/02/2000 (15)
          • Not so fast ... Stan at BeginSurvey.Net 17:02:16 2/02/2000 (5)
            • Spain Here... Scott W. Spain 18:39:16 2/03/2000 (0)
            • Re: Not so fast ... pc 07:43:34 2/03/2000 (3)
              • Re: Not so fast ... Scott W. Spain 18:43:20 2/03/2000 (0)
              • one more thing pc 07:59:23 2/03/2000 (1)
                • To My "Special" Bud Stan at Crosstabulations.Com 08:57:48 2/03/2000 (0)
          • Now, you really didn't mean this, did you? Sherman Whipple 10:43:55 2/02/2000 (7)
            • Re: Now, you really didn't mean this, did you? Scott W. Spain 15:29:19 2/02/2000 (6)
              • Re: Now, you really didn't mean this, did you? Sherman 16:11:29 2/02/2000 (5)
                • Re: Now, you really didn't mean this, did you? Scott W. Spain 00:39:40 2/04/2000 (4)
                  • Re: Now, you really didn't mean this, did you? anonymous 02:05:05 2/06/2000 (3)
                    • Re: Now, you really didn't mean this, did you? Mike Curtis 07:45:18 2/09/2000 (0)
                    • Re: Now, you really didn't mean this, did you? Sherman Whipple 11:35:28 2/07/2000 (0)
                    • Re: Now, you really didn't mean this, did you? Scott W. Spain 14:30:01 2/06/2000 (0)
          • Ummmmm... Kinda... Scott W. Spain 01:22:50 2/02/2000 (0)
• Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Daniel Schulman 23:37:13 1/30/2000 (0)
• Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Scott W. Spain 13:13:59 1/28/2000 (0)
• Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Mike Curtis 07:43:21 1/28/2000 (0)
• Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... 25-34 White Male 04:48:30 1/28/2000 (3)
  • Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... michelle from new york city 22:54:39 1/29/2000 (2)
    • Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Scott W. Spain 00:44:52 2/04/2000 (0)
    • Re: We will now ask you some screening questions... Just some guy 14:31:08 1/30/2000 (0)

Subject: