Investigating the Impact of Voice Response Options in Surveys

With the widespread usage of mobile devices, users can now choose to provide input through voice or text. As researchers frequently ask students open-ended questions, we want to explore a natural mode to obtain better feedback in surveys. This study details a preliminary study demonstrating the importance of allowing students to choose between voice or text input to respond to surveys. A survey with several open-ended questions was deployed in a CS1 course. Correlations between the gender of the respondent and their method of responding were evaluated. We found that voice responses tended to be longer and preferred more by females relative to male students.