Are long questionnaires and multiple reminders leading to poorer data quality?

When designing questionnaires, there is a concern for keeping the questionnaire as short as possible. There are several reasons for this, one is the fear that the longer the questionnaire is, the more burdensome it becomes for the respondent, and the fewer respondents would volunteer to complete it. This drawback with longer questionnaires could be solved by repeated dispatches or reminders of the questionnaire. The concern is then if the respondent faced with repeated calls, feels cornered and provides a low quality response just to get off the hook. There is also a fear that the data quality diminishes throughout a long questionnaire as the respondent get tired and do not gives as much consideration to the last sections of the questionnaire as to the first ones. This paper tests if it is so that the data quality diminishes by the number of dispatches/reminders or if the data quality diminishes throughout the questionnaire. The conclusions will help in design of questionnaires by providing evidence on the influence from long questionnaire and from repeated call-backs on the quality of the data received.