What kind of responses get cleaned out during and after the fieldwork period?
Data cleaning is exactly what it sounds like; we're cleaning out low-quality responses so you're left with only accurate and usable data.
Here are some things we look out for when doing data cleaning:
- Removing low-quality open-ended responses
Respondents can sometimes leave gibberish in response to open-ended questions, and sometimes the responses given don't actually answer the question being asked. For example, if your question was "What do you do in your free time?" and the response was "Yes", while it isn't gibberish, it certainly hasn't answered your question. - Removing speeder responses
If the average time taken to answer your survey was three minutes, and a respondent has done it in twenty seconds, it's likely they have not read through and understood the questions shown. - Removing straight-liner responses
When you have a series of similar questions, or a grid question, respondents who are not responding to the survey properly may have selected the same response for many questions in a row. For example, if a person has selected that they strongly agree to more than eight statements, one after the other, this seems unlikely. - Removing responses that fail a "logic check"
When respondents give contradicting responses in a survey, this indicates they may not have read through and understood the questions shown. For example, if a respondent selects "Married with children" in a question asking about their marital status, and then in a follow up question asking how many children they have they select "I don't have any children", this fails the "logic check".
Keep in mind that data cleaning efforts are ongoing during and after data collection, or the fieldwork period. You may see some low-quality responses in your dataset during the fieldwork period, but be assured that the final responses to your survey will be looked through a final time to remove any remaining low-quality responses.
Reach out to us via the chat icon below if you have any questions on data cleaning, and we'd be happy to assist!