Online Surveys

This experimental study investigated factors that influence cheating in health literacy surveys. The objective was to predict who is most likely to cheat using Google in online knowledge surveys. The experiment randomly assigned 265 participants into three research conditions. The first group completed a pen-and-paper version of the health literacy questionnaire. The second group and the third group completed an online version of the same questionnaire, while the participants of the latter group were explicitly asked to be honest. The number of correct answers was higher in the online groups, indicating that respondents to online surveys were more likely to ‘cheat’ by using search engines to answer questions. A positive correlation was found between the ability to seek health information on the Web, and the probability that a participant would cheat without the request to avoid using the Internet. In the online group with a request to be honest, no correlation was found. The conclusion is that people who have high ability to seek information online are most likely to cheat.