Why content matters: Improving non-voters’ survey experience by varying the content of political questionnaires

Survey research struggles with constantly declining response rates. Low response rates do not necessarily imply response bias, yet current research indicates that political surveys suffer from the overrepresentation of politically involved participants. Previous research assumes that politically uninvolved persons are less likely to respond as they are not interested in the topic of political science questionnaires. Adding modules of additional selected unpolitical questions to make a survey more interesting might enhance respondents’ motivation. However, research is missing on the precondition of whether the content of a questionnaire impacts how respondents perceive and experience a survey. To break ground on this research gap, we will investigate (1) whether politically uninvolved participants are less interested in political surveys and (2) whether their survey experience can be improved by intentionally changing a survey’s content. To investigate our research question, we conducted a non-probability web survey among 1.097 respondents of an online access panel in Germany. After completing a module with questions on political involvement, respondents were randomly assigned to either a second module of questions on politics or a module with questions on their subjective well-being. Following the experimental manipulation, we measured the respondents’ survey experience and topic interest. Preliminary results suggest that politically uninvolved participants are less interested in answering questions of political surveys. Their survey experience could be improved by adding additional unpolitical questions. As utilizing these individual differences in survey experience may help to increase participation among politically uninvolved participants systematically, we will discuss the implication of our findings for survey research.