The Effects of Order and Text Box Size of Open-ended Questions on Withdrawal Rate and the Length of Response

Web surveys can collect many responses quickly and easily, but they have a problem with a high withdrawal rate. We found that more respondents tend to leave when open-ended questions are placed first compared to last [2]. Here, we hypothesized that participants would respond with longer sentences in larger text boxes compared to smaller text boxes, and participants would most likely leave when the larger text box was presented first. Then, we conducted a survey in which the order of the open-ended questions and the size of the text box was changed and investigated the withdrawal rate and the length of the responses. The results showed that the withdrawal rate tended to be the highest when the open-ended questions were answered first and when the text boxes were large. In addition, the larger text box obtained a greater length of response. This result indicates a trade-off relationship between the withdrawal rate and the length of response. Furthermore, the withdrawal rate for smartphones tended to be high, regardless of the text box size.