In this case, the options pose additional problems of interpretation. Then they must format this tentative answer in terms of the response options actually provided. For example, this mental calculation might mean dividing the number of alcoholic drinks they consumed last week by seven to come up with an average number per day. Then they must use this information to arrive at a tentative judgment about how many alcoholic drinks they consume in a typical day. But what information should they retrieve, and how should they go about retrieving it? They might think vaguely about some recent occasions on which they drank alcohol, they might carefully try to recall and count the number of alcoholic drinks they consumed last week, or they might retrieve some existing beliefs that they have about themselves (e.g., “I am not much of a drinker”). Once they have interpreted the question, they must retrieve relevant information from memory to answer it. Even though Chang and Krosnick (2003) found that asking about “typical” behaviour has been shown to be more valid than asking about “past” behaviour, their study compared “typical week” to “past week” and may be different when considering typical weekdays or weekend days).
For example, they must decide whether “alcoholic drinks” include beer and wine (as opposed to just hard liquor) and whether a “typical day” is a typical weekday, typical weekend day, or both. How many alcoholic drinks do you consume in a typical day?Īlthough this item at first seems straightforward, it poses several difficulties for respondents. Figure 9.1 Model of the Cognitive Processes Involved in Responding to a Survey Item Ĭonsider, for example, the following questionnaire item: Respondents must interpret the question, retrieve relevant information from memory, form a tentative judgment, convert the tentative judgment into one of the response options provided (e.g., a rating on a 1-to-7 scale), and finally edit their response as necessary. A Cognitive Modelįigure 9.1 presents a model of the cognitive processes that people engage in when responding to a survey item (Sudman, Bradburn, & Schwarz, 1996). Survey Responding as a Psychological Processīefore looking at specific principles of survey questionnaire construction, it will help to consider survey responding as a psychological process. In this section, therefore, we consider some principles for constructing survey questionnaires to minimize these unintended effects and thereby maximize the reliability and validity of respondents’ answers. At worst, they result in systematic biases and misleading results. At best, these influences add noise to the data. The problem is that the answers people give can be influenced in unintended ways by the wording of the items, the order of the items, the response options provided, and many other factors. Although it is easy to think of interesting questions to ask people, constructing a good survey questionnaire is not easy at all. The heart of any survey research project is the survey questionnaire itself. Create a simple survey questionnaire based on principles of effective item writing and organization.Explain what a context effect is and give some examples.
Describe the cognitive processes involved in responding to a survey item.
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