Weak programmers need not apply, LLMs welcome! Survey screening in the AI era

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dc.contributor.authorRyan, Ita
dc.contributor.authorRoedig, Utz
dc.contributor.authorStol, Klaas-Jan
dc.contributor.funderTaighde Éireann - Research Ireland, 23/US/3939; 13/RC/2094_P2; 13/RC/2077_P2
dc.date.accessioned2026-01-27T00:31:39Z
dc.date.available2026-01-27T00:31:39Z
dc.date.issued2026-04-15
dc.description.abstractQuantitative research on software development practice often depends on the results of anonymous online surveys. However, it is difficult to verify that the respondents to such surveys are genuine developers, especially if survey responses are paid for, incentivising respondents to game the system and attracting the attention of bots and professional survey farms. One solution is to include screening questions to assess respondents' coding skills, but this introduces the risk of unfairly excluding considered responses from developers who spent time and energy on the survey. We reviewed the responses of 86 developers who were excluded via screening from analysis of a large unpaid developer survey (n=1,048). We estimated that up to 86% of the developers who were excluded were genuine developers. The advent of large language models (LLMs) casts further doubt on the use of screening questions. Investigating LLM ability, we found that five sample LLMs could answer most widely-used screening questions. Powerful LLM-based survey-taking tools now exist. We researched current survey screening techniques and found that they are susceptible to fraud via LLM use, bots and survey farms. Recruitment strategy may be a better screening technique. We recommend that if survey respondents are compensated only known developers should be invited. Surveys that are widely distributed, e.g. on social media, should not compensate respondents. Instead, researchers should focus on good survey design and sustained, imaginative recruitment strategies.en
dc.description.sponsorshipThis publication has emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Research Ireland under the US-Ireland R&D Partnership Programme Grant Number 23/US/3939 and by Research Ireland grants 13/RC/2094_P2 and 13/RC/2077_P2
dc.description.versionAccepted Version
dc.format.extent13
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.authororcidRyan, Ita§0000-0001-6844-6365
dc.identifier.authororcidRoedig, Utz§0000-0002-4020-0889
dc.identifier.authororcidStol, Klaas-Jan§0000-0002-1038-5050
dc.identifier.citationRyan, I, Roedig, U & Stol, K-J 2026, Weak programmers need not apply, LLMs welcome! Survey screening in the AI era. in Proceedings of the 48th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering. 48th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering , Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 12/04/26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3744916.3787789
dc.identifier.doi10.1145/3744916.3787789
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0001-6844-6365/work/203446680
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0002-1038-5050/work/203446726
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0002-4020-0889/work/204225925
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/18472
dc.language.isoen
dc.rights© 2026, Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
dc.rights.accessrightsopen access
dc.rights.licensenameAttribution 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.statusPeer reviewed
dc.subjectSurvey research
dc.subjectSurvey screening
dc.subjectSoftware developers
dc.subject[ComputerScience]
dc.titleWeak programmers need not apply, LLMs welcome! Survey screening in the AI eraen
dc.typeConference item
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