The Location of Demographic Questions in Questionnaires

Despite the widely-held belief that demographic questions should be located at the end of questionnaires, little research effort has been made to find empirical evidence for such a recommendation. Based on a laboratory experiment, this study compares survey responses between demographics-at-the-beginning and demographics-at-the-end questionnaires in terms of response quality, social desirability bias, omission rate of demographic questions, and ease of response. The results showed that there were no significant differences in survey response between the two locations of demographics. The findings reassure marketing researchers who need to use quota sampling, which requires demographics to be asked at the beginning of questionnaires.