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Are partial survey responses included in reports?

Since Fall 2021, reports include partial responses when it’s the participant's only response so that participants are not entirely discarded from the data simply for not making it to the last page of the survey.


It’s tempting to only include responses from completed surveys to avoid including meaningless data, e.g., when an individual accesses the survey several times to review the questions. However, there are cases when an individual’s only response may be a partial one (indicated with “started” in the participation dashboard). Given what research tells us about selection bias, this is likely to exacerbate an existing problem where the individuals we most want to hear from are the least likely to finish the survey. Informed by this research, reports include partial responses when it’s the participant's only response.

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