Factors affecting data quality of online questionnaires with consumers in sensory and consumer research: Metrics from the literature and empirical insights

Sensory and consumer research now frequently takes place online. This comes with advantages, but also the potential for poor quality data. This presentation11Oral presentation to the Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium held in Nantes (France) in August 2023. raises awareness of the factors that influence online data quality by 1) identifying factors that can impact the reliability and validity of consumer data obtained with online questionnaires, 2) highlighting indices of online questionnaire data quality that can be used to assess the likelihood of reduced quality, and 3) recommending good practices for assessing online questionnaire data quality. By raising awareness of sources of invalidity in online survey research and by presenting available remedies and good practices, we hope that colleagues will begin to adopt relevant measures. Specific suggestions are offered regarding the important elements of data quality to include in scientific manuscripts. To augment, findings from an empirical examination of data quality in an online survey (1846 UK participants) are presented. Key insights were 1) proportion of survey participants that provided data of reduced quality, 2) different types of data quality indices provide different perspectives on reduced data quality, 3) time to complete survey tasks is related to data quality, 4) some participant characteristics could be more strongly associated with reduced data quality.