Abstract
In Internet surveys, the responses for rating scale questions can be influenced by appearance of the rating scale on a computer screen. To examine the effects of the way of displaying response items on a computer screen of the internet survey, the author has conducted an experiment using 16 kinds of questionnaires. Each of the questionnaires includes same questions but the choice items of 7-point rating scales were displayed in different manners: vertical or horizontal layout, ascending or descending order, numbered or worded labels, bipolar or unipolar scales. By using the result of the surveys, he mainly compares top-3 box ratings. In the comparisons, he finds some order effects and other effects: higher top-3 box ratings by displaying the rating scales in ascending order than that of descending order and higher top ratings by displaying numbered labels with bipolar scales than that of worded labels. However, he doesn't find any significant difference from whether to display the scales vertically or horizontally.
