Academic stress may be the single most dominant stress factor that affects the mental well-being of college students. Some groups of students may experience more stress than others, and the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic could further complicate the stress response. We surveyed 843 college students and evaluated whether academic stress levels affected their mental health, and if so, whether there were specific vulnerable groups by gender, race/ethnicity, year of study, and reaction to the pandemic. Using a combination of scores from the Perception of Academic Stress Scale (PAS) and the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS), we found a significant correlation between worse academic stress and poor mental well-being in all the students, who also reported an exacerbation of stress in response to the pandemic. In addition, SWEMWBS scores revealed the lowest mental health and highest academic stress in non-binary individuals, and the opposite trend was observed for both the measures in men. Furthermore, women and non-binary students reported higher academic stress than men, as indicated by PAS scores. The same pattern held as a reaction to COVID-19-related stress. PAS scores and responses to the pandemic varied by the year of study, but no obvious patterns emerged. These results indicate that academic stress in college is significantly correlated to psychological well-being in the students who responded to this survey. In addition, some groups of college students are more affected by stress than others, and additional resources and support should be provided to them.

/pdf/academic-stress-and-mental-well-being-in-college-students-g9k8unau.pdf

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

Surveys by Telephone: A National Comparison with Personal Interviews

Exhaustive or exhausting? Evidence on respondent fatigue in long surveys

In recent decades, research about survey questions has emphasized decision-based approaches. Current research focuses on identifying and systematizing characteristics of questions that are key in r...

Advances in the Science of Asking Questions

Conspiracy theory beliefs are notoriously persistent. Influential hypotheses propose that they fulfill important psychological needs, thus resisting counterevidence. Yet previous failures in correcting conspiracy beliefs may be due to counterevidence being insufficiently compelling and tailored. To evaluate this possibility, we leveraged developments in generative artificial intelligence and engaged 2190 conspiracy believers in personalized evidence-based dialogues with GPT-4 Turbo. The intervention reduced conspiracy belief by ~20%. The effect remained 2 months later, generalized across a wide range of conspiracy theories, and occurred even among participants with deeply entrenched beliefs. Although the dialogues focused on a single conspiracy, they nonetheless diminished belief in unrelated conspiracies and shifted conspiracy-related behavioral intentions. These findings suggest that many conspiracy theory believers can revise their views if presented with sufficiently compelling evidence. 

Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI

Herbert Simon’s (1956) concept of satisficing provides an intuitive explanation for the reasons why respondents to surveys sometimes adopt response strategies that can lead to a reduction in data quality. As such, the concept rapidly gained popularity among researchers after it was first introduced to the field of survey methodology by Krosnick and Alwin (1987), and has become a widely-cited buzzword linked to different forms of response error. In this article, we present the findings of a systematic review involving a content analysis of journal articles published in English-language journals between 1987 and 2015 that have drawn on the satisficing concept to evaluate survey data quality. Based on extensive searches of online databases, and an initial screening exercise to apply the study’s inclusion criteria, 141 relevant articles were identified. Guided by the theory of survey satisficing described by Krosnick (1991), the methodological features of the shortlisted articles were coded, ncluding the indicators of satisficing analyzed, the main predictors of satisficing, and the presence of main or interaction effects on the prevalence of satisficing involving indicators of task difficulty, respondent ability and respondent motivation. Our analysis sheds light on potential differences in the extent to which satisficing theory holds for different types of response error, and highlights a number of avenues for future research.

/pdf/research-synthesissatisficing-in-surveys-a-systematic-review-4d40exqdpk.pdf

Research SynthesisSatisficing in Surveys: A Systematic Review of the Literature

The format of a survey question can affect responses. Branched survey scales are a question format that is increasingly used but little researched. It is unclear whether branched scales work in a different way than unbranched scales. Based on the decomposition principle (Armstrong, Denniston, and Gordon 1975), if breaking a decision task up into component decision parts increases the accuracy of the final decision, one could imagine that breaking an attitudinal item into its component parts would increase the accuracy of the final report. In practice, this is applied by first asking the respondent the direction of their attitude, then using a follow-up question to measure the intensity of the attitude (Krosnick and Berent 1993). A split-ballot experiment was embedded within the Understanding Society Innovation Panel, allowing for a comparison of responses between branched and unbranched versions of the same questions. Reliability and validity of both versions were assessed, along with the time taken to answer the questions in each format. In a total survey costs framework, this allows establishing whether any gains in reliability and validity are outweighed by additional costs incurred because of extended administration times. Findings show evidence of response differences between branched and unbranched scales, particularly a higher rate of extreme responding in the branched format. However, the differences in reliability and validity between the two formats are less clear cut. The branched questions took longer to administer, potentially increasing survey costs.

A Comparison of Branched Versus Unbranched Rating Scales for the Measurement of Attitudes in Surveys

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Research SynthesisSatisficing in Surveys: A Systematic Review of the Literature

A Comparison of Branched Versus Unbranched Rating Scales for the Measurement of Attitudes in Surveys