Techniques for Assessing Safety Symbol Comprehension: Web-Based vs. In-Person Questionnaire Administration
This study compares methods for testing comprehension of a set of three safety symbols – in-person questionnaire administration and three variations of a web-based questionnaire using similar protocols. Both the medium and the particular questions asked were varied. The in-person method included fol...
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Published in | Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Vol. 50; no. 19; pp. 2207 - 2211 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Los Angeles, CA
SAGE Publications
01.10.2006
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Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | This study compares methods for testing comprehension of a set of three safety symbols – in-person questionnaire administration and three variations of a web-based questionnaire using similar protocols. Both the medium and the particular questions asked were varied. The in-person method included follow-up and probing questions and used questions about the individual symbols only if needed to elicit complete answers. The web-based questionnaires omitted follow-up and probing questions, and always included questions about the individual symbols. The second variation of the web-based questionnaire added an example of a “good/poor answer” as shown in ANSI Z535.3 Annex B. The third included the example answer and an additional question regarding consequences. The in-person method measured 90% correct comprehension with 2% critical confusions. Comprehension measured by each of the three web-based methods did not significantly differ from the in-person method. The comparison of different web-based questionnaires indicates that for web-based testing, asking about individual symbols within a symbol set, providing an example of a good/poor answer, and/or including an additional question regarding consequences can improve the method's ability to capture comprehension data. These results suggest that under some circumstances, a web-based questionnaire could substitute for in-person comprehension testing. |
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ISSN: | 1541-9312 1071-1813 2169-5067 |
DOI: | 10.1177/154193120605001904 |