Instructional manipulation check: Difference between revisions

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[[File:BlueDotTask.pdf|thumb|Blue-dot task, a check designed to detect participants who fail to read the instructions. After Oppenheimer ''et al.''<ref name=oppenheimer/>]]

An '''instructional [[manipulation check]]''', often abbreviated '''IMC''', is a special kind of question inserted in a [[questionnaire]] among the regular questions, designed to check whether respondents are paying attention to the instructions.<ref>{{cite book |title=Principles of Research in Behavioral Science'' (Third Edition)'' |author=Bernard E. Whitley, Jr. |author2=Mary E. Kite |publisher=Routledge |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-136-19658-4 |pages=248–249}}</ref> Discarding responses by participants who fail to read the instructions reducesincreases the [[Signal-to-noise ratio|signal-to-noise]] ratio and can thereby increase the [[statistical power]] of an experiment. The tool was developed by Oppenheimer ''et al.''<ref name=oppenheimer>{{cite journal |author=Daniel M. Oppenheimer |authorlink=Daniel M. Oppenheimer |author2=Tom Meyvis |author3=Nicolas Davidenko |title=Instructional manipulation checks: Detecting satisficing to increase statistical power |journal=[[Journal of Experimental Social Psychology]] |volume=45 |issue=4 |date=July 2009 |pages=867–872 |doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2009.03.009}}</ref>

Eliminating random responses this way before performing [[statistical hypothesis testing]] may be considered a legitimate form of [[data manipulation]], but should be duly mentioned in publications reporting on the outcome of the experiment in question.<ref name=myth>{{cite journal |author=Wolfgang Stroebe |authorlink=Wolfgang Stroebe |author2=Tom Postmes |author3=Russell Spears |title=Scientific Misconduct and the Myth of Self-correction in Science |journal=[[Perspectives on Psychological Science]] |date=2012 |volume=7 |issue=6 <!--|pages=670–688--> |at=Note 2 |doi=10.1177/1745691612460687|pmid=26168129 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

==Blue-dot task==

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[[Category:Questionnaire construction]]

[[Category:Survey methodology]]

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