Asking Questions The Definitive Guide to Questionnaire Design— For Market Research, Political Polls, and Social and Health Questionnaires, Revised Edition Asking Questions Norman M. Bradburn Seymour Sudman Brian Wansink Asking Questions The Definitive Guide to Questionnaire Design— For Market Research, Political Polls, and Social and Health Questionnaires, Revised Edition Copyright © 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. 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To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002. Jossey-Bass also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bradburn, Norman M. Asking questions : the definitive guide to questionnaire design—for market research, political polls, and social and health questionnaires / Norman M. Bradburn, Brian Wansink, Seymour Sudman.—Rev. ed. p. cm. Earlier ed. by Sudman and Bradburn with Sudman named first. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-7879-7088-3 (alk. paper) 1. Social sciences—Research. 2. Questionnaires. I. Wansink, Brian. II. Sudman, Seymour. III. Title. H62.B63 2004 300'.72'3—dc22 2004001683 Printed in the United States of America FIRST EDITION PB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Contents Preface and Acknowledgments xi The Authors xv Part I. Strategies for Asking Questions 1. The Social Context of Question Asking 3 Part II. Tactics for Asking Questions 2. Asking Nonthreatening Questions About Behavior 35 3. Asking Threatening Questions About Behavior 79 4. Asking Questions About Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions 117 5. Asking and Recording Open-Ended and Closed-Ended Questions 151 6. Asking Questions that Measure Knowledge 179 7. Asking Questions that Evaluate Performance 213 8. Asking Psychographic Questions 243 9. Asking Standard Demographic Questions 261 Part III. Drafting and Crafting the Questionnaire 10. Organizing and Designing Questionnaires 283 11. Questionnaires from Start to Finish 315 vii 12. Asking Questions FAQs 323 Bibliography and Recommended Readings 335 Glossary 347 Index 367 Appendix A: List of Academic and Not-for-Profit Survey Research Organizations 375 Appendix B: Illinois Liquor Control Commission: College Student Survey 411 Appendix C: Faculty Retention Survey 417 Appendix D: Kinko’s: Open-ended Service Satisfaction Survey 425 viii CONTENTS This book is dedicated to the memory of our colleague and coauthor Seymour Sudman who died tragically while we were in the midst of writing this book. His spirit and wisdom have continued to inspire us as we brought this manuscript to press. He lives on in this book. xi Preface This book is a revised and updated edition of Asking Questions: A Practical Guide to Questionnaire Design, first published in 1982. It focuses on the type of question asking that social science researchers and market researchers use in structured questionnaires or interviews. Many of the principles of effective formalized questioning we focus on in this book are useful in other contexts. They are useful in informal or semistructured interviews, in administering printed questionnaires in testing rooms, and in experimental studies involving participant evaluations or responses. We intend this book to be a useful “handbook” for sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, evaluation researchers, social workers, sensory scientists, marketing and advertising researchers, and for many others who have occasion to obtain systematic information from clients, customers, or employees. In the past two decades, two major changes in the practice of survey research prompted us to produce a revised edition. First, there has been a revolution in research on question asking brought about by the application of cognitive psychology to the study of questionnaire design. We now have a conceptual framework for understanding the question-answering process and the causes of the various response effects that have been observed since the early days of social scientific surveys. This work has helped move questionnaire construction from an art to a science. Second, there has been a technological revolution in the way computers can be used to support the survey process. Computerassisted survey information collection (CASIC) refers to a variety xii PREFACE of specialized programs used to support survey data collection—for example, CAPI (computer-assisted personal interviewing) or CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing), to name the most common forms of CASIC. The greater use of computer technology at every stage of data collection in surveys has made many of the suggestions in our earlier edition obsolete and necessitated a thorough reworking of discussion that was predicated on traditional paper-and-pencil questionnaires. We are also beginning an era of Web-based surveys. Although there is still much to learn about this new method of conducting surveys, we have tried to incorporate what we know at this time into our discussions where relevant. We have tried to make the book self-contained by including major references. Some readers, however, may wish to refer to our earlier books, Response Effects in Surveys: A Review and Synthesis (Sudman and Bradburn, 1974); Improving Interview Method and Questionnaire Design: Response Effects to Threatening Questions in Survey Research (Bradburn, Sudman, and Associates, 1979); Thinking About Answers (Sudman, Bradburn, and Schwarz, 1996); and Consumer Panels, (Sudman and Wansink, 2002), for more detailed discussion of the empirical data that support our recommendations. This book is specifically concerned with questionnaire construction— not with all aspects of survey design and administration. Although we stress the careful formulation of the research problems before a questionnaire is designed, we do not tell you how to select and formulate important research problems. To do so requires a solid knowledge of your field—knowledge obtained through study and review of earlier research, as well as hard thinking and creativity. Once the research problem is formulated, however, this book can help you ask the right questions. The book is divided into three parts. In Part I we discuss the social context of question asking. We present our central thesis, namely that questions must be precisely worded if responses to a survey are to be accurate; we outline a conceptual framework for understanding the survey interview and present examples to illusintromatter. trate some of the subtleties of language and contexts that can cause problems. We also discuss some of the ethical principles important to survey researchers—the right to privacy, informed consent, and confidentiality of data. Part II is devoted to tactics for asking questions. In Chapters Two through Nine we consider the major issues in formulating questions on different topics, such as the differences between requirements for questions about behavior and for questions about attitudes. We also consider how to ask questions dealing with knowledge and special issues in designing questions that evaluate performance, measure subjective characteristics, and measure demographic characteristics. In Part III we turn from the discussion of the formulation of questions about specific kinds of topics to issues involved in crafting the entire questionnaire. We discuss how to organize a questionnaire and the special requirements of different modes of data collection, such as personal interviewing, telephone interviewing, self-administration, and electronic surveying. We end with a set of frequently asked questions and our answers. Throughout the book we use terms that are well understood by survey research specialists but that may be new to some of our readers. We have therefore provided a glossary of commonly used survey research terms. Many of the terms found in the Glossary are also discussed more fully in the text. In addition, we have included a list of academic and not-for-profit survey research organizations in Appendix A. The chapters in Part II are introduced with a checklist of items to consider. The checklists are intended as initial guides to the major points made and as subsequent references for points to keep in mind during the actual preparation of a questionnaire. Readers new to designing surveys should read sequentially from beginning to end. Experienced researchers and those with specific questionnaire issues will turn to appropriate chapters as needed. All readers should find our detailed index of use. PREFACE xiii In this book we have distilled a vast amount of methodological research on question asking to give practical advice informed by many years of experience in a wide variety of survey research areas. But much is still not known. We caution readers seeking advice on how to write the perfect questionnaire that perfection cannot be guaranteed. For readers who wish to do additional research in questionnaire design, much interesting work remains to be done. Acknowledgments While we were in the process of writing this new edition, Seymour Sudman died tragically. His vast knowledge of the research literature, deep experience, and wise judgment continue to enrich this volume. We miss him greatly. This edition builds on its predecessor and all those who contributed to it. We are indebted to many colleagues at the Survey Research Laboratory (SRL), University of Illinois, and at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), University of Chicago. These colleagues include Herbert Jackson, who compiled the material for Chapter Twelve, and Matthew Cheney, Sarah Jo Brenner, and Martin Kator, who helped in manuscript preparation by compiling and summarizing recently published findings in the area of survey design. At Jossey-Bass, Seth Schwartz and Justin Frahm: We are grateful for their patience with the sometimes distracted authors and for their inventive solutions to the inevitable challenges that arose in turning a manuscript into an aesthetically pleasing book. Readers, as do we, owe them all a deep debt of gratitude. Norman Bradburn Arlington, Virginia Brian Wansink Urbana, Illinois August 2003 xiv PREFACE The Authors Norman M. Bradburn (Ph.D. Harvard University, 1960) is the Margaret and Tiffany Blake Distinguished Service Professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology and the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. He has written widely, often with Seymour Sudman, on topics in survey methodology. He was a pioneer in the application of cognitive psychology to the design of survey questionnaires. For a number of years, he was the director of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. He is currently the assistant director for social, behavioral, and economic sciences at the National Science Foundation. Seymour Sudman (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1962) was the Walter H. Stellner Distinguished Professor of Marketing at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) from 1968 until his death in 2000. Through a lifetime of active research, he contributed immeasurably to the area of survey design, sampling, and methodology. He was actively involved in providing guidance to the U.S. Census Bureau, and he served as deputy director and research professor of the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. Brian Wansink (Ph.D. Stanford University, 1990) is the Julian Simon Research Scholar and professor of marketing, of nutritional science, of advertising, and of agricultural and consumer economics at the xv University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and is an adjunct research professor at Cornell University and at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He directs the Food and Brand Lab, which focuses on psychology related to food choice and consumption (www.FoodPsychology. com). Prior to moving to Illinois, he was a marketing professor at Dartmouth College and at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He coauthored Consumer Panels with Seymour Sudman. xvi THE AUTHORS Asking Questions Part One Strategies for Asking Questions Chapter One The Social Context of Question Asking The precise wording of questions plays a vital role in determining the answers given by respondents. This fact is not appreciated as fully as it should be, even in ordinary conversation. For example, a colleague mentioned that he needed to pick out granite for a kitchen countertop. The only day he could make the trip was the Saturday before Labor Day. Although he called on Friday to make certain the store was open, he arrived at the store on Saturday only to find a sign on the door that said “Closed Labor Day Weekend.” When asked if he remembered what question he had asked the clerk at the store, he said, “I asked him what hours he was open on Saturday, and he replied ‘Nine to five.’” This story illustrates the basic challenge for those who engage in the business of asking questions. It illustrates not only the importance of the golden rule for asking questions—Ask what you want to know, not something else—but also, more important, the ambiguities of language and the powerful force of context in interpreting the meaning of questions and answers. Our colleague had unwittingly asked a perfectly ambiguous question. Did the question refer to Saturdays in general or the next Saturday specifically? The clerk obviously interpreted the question as referring to Saturdays in general. Our colleague meant the next Saturday and did not think his question could mean anything else until he arrived at the store and found it closed. In everyday life, these types of miscommunications happen all the time. Most of the time they are corrected by further conversation or by direct questions that clarify their meaning. Sometimes 3 they only get corrected when expected behavior does not occur, as was the case when the store turned out to be closed. But the stylized form of question asking used in surveys does not often provide feedback about ambiguities or miscommunications. We must depend on pretesting to weed out ambiguities and to help reformulate questions as clearly as possible—to ask about what we want to know, not something else. The thesis of this book is that question wording is a crucial element in surveys. The importance of the precise ordering of words in a question can be illustrated by another example. Two priests, a Dominican and a Jesuit, are discussing whether it is a sin to smoke and pray at the same time. After failing to reach a conclusion, each goes off to consult his respective superior. The next week they meet again. The Dominican says, “Well, what did your superior say?” The Jesuit responds, “He said it was all right.” “That’s funny,” the Dominican replies. “My superior said it was a sin.” The Jesuit says, “What did you ask him?” The Dominican replies, “I asked him if it was all right to smoke while praying.” “Oh,” says the Jesuit. “I asked my superior if it was all right to pray while smoking.” Small Wording Changes that Made Big Differences The fact that seemingly small changes in wording can cause large differences in responses has been well known to survey practitioners since the early days of surveys. Yet, typically, formulating the questionnaire is thought to be the easiest part of survey research and often receives too little effort. Because no codified rules for question asking exist, it might appear that few, if any, basic principles exist to differentiate good from bad questions. We believe, however, that many such principles do exist. This book provides principles that 4 ASKING QUESTIONS novices and experienced practitioners can use to ask better questions. In addition, throughout the book we present examples of both good and bad questions to illustrate that question wording and the question’s social context make a difference. Loaded Words Produce Loaded Results Suppose a person wanted to know whether workers believed they were fairly compensated for their work. Asking “Are you fairly compensated for your work?” is likely to elicit a very different answer than asking “Does your employer or his representative resort to trickery in order to defraud you of part of your earnings?” One would not be surprised to find that an advocate for improving the situation of workers asked the second question. Clearly the uses of words like “trickery” and “defraud” signal that the author of the question does not have a high opinion of employers. Indeed, this was a question asked by Karl Marx on an early survey of workers. Questionnaires from lobbying groups are often perceived to be biased. A questionnaire received by one of the authors contained the following question: “The so-called ‘targeted tax cuts’ are a maze of special interest credits for narrow, favored groups. Experts agree the complex, loophole-ridden tax code makes it easy for Big Government liberals to raise taxes without the people even realizing it. Do you feel a simpler tax system—such as a single flat rate or a national sales tax with no income tax—would make it easier for you to tell when politicians try to raise your taxes?” Even an inexperienced researcher can see that this question is heavily loaded with emotionally charged words, such as “so-called,” “loophole-ridden,” and “Big Government liberal.” The authors of this questionnaire are clearly interested in obtaining responses that support their position. Although the example here is extreme, it does illustrate how a questionnaire writer can consciously or unconsciously word a question to obtain a desired answer. Perhaps not surprisingly, the questionnaire was accompanied by a request for a contribution to help defray the cost of compiling and publicizing THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 5 the survey. Surveys of this type, sometimes called frugging (fundraising under the guise) surveys, are often primarily intended to raise funds rather than to collect survey information. The American Association for Public Opinion Research has labeled fundraising surveys deceptive and unethical, but they are unfortunately not illegal. Wording questions to obtain a desired answer is not the only type of problem that besets survey authors. Sometimes questions are simply complex and difficult to understand. Consider this example from a British Royal Commission appointed to study problems of population (cited in Moser and Kalton, 1972): “Has it happened to you that over a long period of time, when you neither practiced abstinence, nor used birth control, you did not conceive?” This question is very difficult to understand, and it is not clear what the investigators were trying to find out. The Nuances of Politically Charged Issues Yet even when there are no deliberate efforts to bias the question, it is often difficult to write good questions because the words to describe the phenomenon being studied may be politically charged. The terms used to describe the area of concern may be so politically sensitive that using different terms changes the response percentages considerably. A question asking about welfare and assistance to the poor from the 1998 General Social Survey (Davis, Smith, and Marsden, 2000) produced quite different opinions. We are faced with many problems in this country, none of which can be solved easily or inexpensively. I am going to name some of these problems, and for each one I’d like you to tell me whether you think we’re spending too much money on it, too little money, or about the right amount. Are we spending too much money, too little money or about the right amount on . . . 6 ASKING QUESTIONS “Welfare” “Assistance to the Poor” (N = 1,317) (N = 1,390) Too little 17% 62% About right 38% 26% Too much 45% 12% Total 100% 100% Not all wording changes cause changes in response distributions. For example, even though two old examples of questions about government responsibility to the unemployed were worded differently, 69 percent of respondents answered “yes.” Perhaps this is because the questions were fairly general. One question, from a June 1939 Roper survey, asked, “Do you think our government should or should not provide for all people who have no other means of subsistence?” (Hastings and Southwick, 1974, p. 118). A differently worded question, this one from a Gallup poll of January 1938, asked, “Do you think it is the government’s responsibility to pay the living expenses of needy people who are out of work?” (Gallup, 1972, p. 26). Respondents are less likely to agree as questions become more specific, as illustrated by three Gallup questions from May to June 1945: Do you think the government should give money to workers who are unemployed for a limited length of time until they can find another job? (Yes 63%) It has been proposed that unemployed workers with dependents be given up to $25 per week by the government for as many as 26 weeks during one year while they are out of work and looking for a job. Do you favor or oppose this plan? (Favor 46%) Would you be willing to pay higher taxes to give people up to $25 a week for 26 weeks if they fail to find satisfactory jobs? (Yes 34%) THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 7 Note that introducing more details—such as specifying actual dollars, specifying the length of the support, and reminding respondents that unemployment benefits might have to be paid for with increased taxes—changed the meaning of the question and produced a corresponding change in responses. In later chapters we will discuss in more detail how wording affects responses, and we will make specific recommendations for constructing better questionnaires. Questioning as a Social Process A survey interview and an ordinary social conversation have many similarities. Indeed, Bingham and Moore (1959) defined the research interview as a “conversation with a purpose.” The opportunity to meet and talk with a variety of people appears to be a key attraction for many professional interviewers. By the same token, a key attraction for many respondents appears to be the opportunity to talk about a number of topics with a sympathetic listener. We do not know a great deal about the precise motivations of people who participate in surveys, but the tenor of the evidence suggests that most people enjoy the experience. Those who refuse to participate do not refuse because they have already participated in too many surveys and are tired; characteristically, they are people who do not like surveys at all and consistently refuse to participate in them or have experienced bad surveys. Viewing Respondents as Volunteer Conversationalists Unlike witnesses in court, survey respondents are under no compulsion to answer our questions. They must be persuaded to participate in the interview, and their interest (or at least patience) must be maintained throughout. If questions are demeaning, embarrassing, or upsetting, respondents may terminate the interview or falsify their answers. Unlike the job applicant or the patient answering a doctor’s questions, respondents have nothing tangible to gain 8 ASKING QUESTIONS from the interview. Their only reward is some measure of psychic gratification—such as the opportunity to state their opinions or relate their experiences to a sympathetic and nonjudgmental listener, the chance to contribute to public or scientific knowledge, or even the positive feeling that they have helped the interviewer. The willingness of the public to participate in surveys has been declining in recent years for many reasons, one of which is the tremendous number of poor and misleading surveys that are conducted. It is therefore doubly important for the survey researcher to make sure that the questionnaire is of the highest quality. Although the survey process has similarities to conversations, it differs from them in several respects: (1) a survey is a transaction between two people who are bound by special norms; (2) the interviewer offers no judgment of the respondents’ replies and must keep them in strict confidence; (3) respondents have an equivalent obligation to answer each question truthfully and thoughtfully; and (4) in the survey it is difficult to ignore an inconvenient question or give an irrelevant answer. The well-trained interviewer will repeat the question or probe the ambiguous or irrelevant response to obtain a proper answer. Although survey respondents may have trouble changing the subject, they can refuse to answer any individual question or break off the interview. The ability of the interviewer to make contact with the respondent and to secure cooperation is undoubtedly important in obtaining the interview. In addition, the questionnaire plays a major role in making the experience enjoyable and in motivating the respondent to answer the questions. A bad questionnaire, like an awkward conversation, can turn an initially pleasant situation into a boring or frustrating experience. Above and beyond concern for the best phrasing of the particular questions, you—the questionnaire designer—must consider the questionnaire as a whole and its impact on the interviewing experience. With topics that are not intrinsically interesting to respondents, you should take particular care to see that at least some parts of the interview will be interesting to them. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 9 Why Some Sensitive Topics Aren’t Sensitive Beginning survey researchers often worry about asking questions on topics that may be threatening or embarrassing to respondents. For many years, survey researchers believed that their interviews could include only socially acceptable questions. In the 1940s it was only with great trepidation that the Gallup poll asked a national sample of respondents whether any member of their family suffered from cancer. Today surveys include questions about a whole host of formerly taboo subjects, such as religious beliefs, income and spending behavior, personal health, drug and alcohol use, and sexual and criminal behavior. Popular commentators and those not familiar with survey research sometimes note that they would not tell their best friends some of the things that surveys ask about, such as sexual behavior or finances. The fact that the interviewer is a stranger and not a friend is part of the special nature of the situation. People will disclose information to strangers that they would not tell their best friends precisely because they will never see the stranger again and because their name will not be associated with the information. When you tell a friend about your potentially embarrassing behavior or intimate details about your life, you may worry about the repercussions. For example, Roger Brown, a well-known social psychologist, noted in the introduction to his autobiographical memoir that he deliberately did not have his longtime secretary type the manuscript of the book, although she had typed all his other manuscripts, because he did not want her to be shocked or distressed by the revelations about his personal life. He preferred to have the typing done by someone who did not have a personal connection with him (Brown, 1996). With proper motivation and under assurances of confidentiality, people will willingly divulge private information in a survey interview. Most respondents participate voluntarily in surveys. They will wish to perform their roles properly, that is, to give the best information they can. It is your responsibility to reinforce respondents’ 10 ASKING QUESTIONS good intentions by designing the questionnaire effectively. If the questionnaire requires respondents to recall past events, the question should give them as many aids as possible to achieve accurate recall. (Techniques for designing the recall type of question are discussed in Chapter Two.) Dealing with the Social Desirability Bias In general, although respondents are motivated to be “good respondents” and to provide the information that is asked for, they are also motivated to be “good people.” That is, they will try to represent themselves to the interviewer in a way that reflects well on them. Social desirability bias is a significant problem in survey research. This is especially the case when the questions deal with either socially desirable or socially undesirable behavior or attitudes. If respondents have acted in ways or have attitudes that they feel are not the socially desirable ones, they are placed in a dilemma. They want to report accurately as good respondents. At the same time, they want to appear to be good people in the eyes of the interviewer. Techniques for helping respondents resolve this dilemma on the side of being good respondents include interviewer training in methods of establishing rapport with the respondent, putting respondents at their ease, and appearing to be nonjudgmental. (Question-wording techniques that can help reduce social desirability bias are discussed in Chapter Three.) Viewing the interview as a special case of ordinary social interaction helps us better understand the sources of error in the questioning process. Conversations are structured by a set of assumptions that help the participants understand each other without having to explain everything that is meant. These assumptions have been systematically described by Paul Grice (1975), a philosopher of language. (See Sudman, Bradburn, and Schwarz, 1996, chap. 3 for a full discussion.) According to Grice’s analysis, conversations are cooperative in nature and are governed by a set of four maxims that each participant implicitly understands and shares. The maxim of THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 11 quality says that speakers will not say anything they know to be false. The maxim of relation indicates that speakers will say things that are relevant to the topic of the ongoing conversation. The maxim of quantity enjoins speakers to make what they say as informative as possible and not to be repetitive. The maxim of manner requires speakers to be clear rather than ambiguous or obscure. If the questionnaire makes it difficult for respondents to follow these maxims, an uncomfortable interaction between the interviewer and respondent can result. Respondents’ answers can also be distorted. (The importance of these principles for questionnaire design is discussed in Chapters Four and Five.) Investigators should try to avoid asking respondents for information they do not have. If such questions must be asked, the interviewer should make it clear that it is acceptable for the respondent not to know. (Particular problems relating to knowledge questions are discussed in Chapter Six.) The standard face-to-face interview is clearly a social interaction. The self-administered mailed questionnaire or those conducted electronically via the Web are much less of a social encounter, although they are not entirely impersonal. Personal interviews conducted by telephone provide less social interaction than a face-toface interview but more than a self-administered questionnaire. To compensate for the lack of interaction, the self-administered questionnaire, whether paper-and-pencil or electronic, must depend entirely on the questions and written instructions to elicit accurate responses and motivate the respondent to participate in the study. The interviewer does not have the opportunity to encourage or clarify, as would be possible in a face-to-face interview and to some extent in a telephone interview. (Differences among these modes of asking questions are discussed in Chapter Ten.) Ethical Principles in Question Asking Discussions of ethical problems in survey research have centered on three principles: the right of privacy, informed consent, and confi- 12 ASKING QUESTIONS dentiality. Survey research is intrusive in the sense that the privacy of respondents is violated when they are selected to participate in the survey and then asked a series of questions. It is critically important to be aware of respondents’ right of privacy. Westin (1967, p. 373) defines right of privacy as “the right of the individual to define for himself, with only extraordinary exceptions in the interest of society, when and on what terms his acts should be revealed to the general public.” For the purpose of survey research, we would extend Westin’s definition to include attitudes, opinions, and beliefs, in addition to actions. Why the Right of Privacy Is Not Absolute Several aspects of the right of privacy have implications for the ethics of survey research. First, privacy is not viewed as an absolute right. The interests of society are recognized in extraordinary circumstances as sometimes justifying a violation of privacy, although the presumption is in favor of privacy. Second, the right of privacy with regard to information refers to people’s right to control data about themselves that they reveal to others. They can certainly be asked to reveal data about themselves that may be highly sensitive, but they have the right to control whether they voluntarily answer the question. There is no presumption of secrecy about a person’s activities and beliefs. Rather, people have the right to decide to whom and under what conditions they will make the information available. Thus, the right of privacy does not prevent someone from asking questions about someone else’s behavior, although under some conditions it may be considered rude to do so. The right of privacy does, however, protect respondents from having to disclose information if they do not wish to. And it requires that information revealed under conditions of confidentiality must be kept confidential. With regard to confidentiality of information, norms may vary from situation to situation. In some cases, such as with medical or legal information, explicit authorization is needed to communicate the information to a third party (for example, “You may tell X”). In THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 13 other situations, such as during ordinary conversations, the implicit norm is to permit communication about the contents of the conversation to third parties unless there is an explicit request for confidentiality (for example, “Keep this confidential”). One of the reasons for routine explicit assurance of confidentiality in research interviews is to overcome the natural similarity between research interviews and everyday conversations with strangers, which have the implicit norm of nonconfidentiality. What’s Informed Consent? The term informed consent implies that potential respondents should be given sufficient information about what they are actually being asked and how their responses will be used. The intent is for them to be able to judge whether unpleasant consequences will follow as a result of their disclosure. The assumption is that people asked to reveal something about themselves can respond intelligently only if they know the probable consequences of their doing so. The standards by which procedures for obtaining informed consent are evaluated usually refer to the risks of harm to respondents who provide the requested information or participate in a particular research activity. What it means to be “at risk” thus becomes crucial for a discussion of the proper procedures for obtaining informed consent. When is consent “informed”? Unfortunately, there does not appear to be agreement on the answer to this question. It is generally thought that the amount of information supplied to the respondent should be proportional to the amount of risk involved. You must ask yourself, then: “How much risk is actually involved in the research? How completely can I describe the research without contaminating the data I am trying to obtain? How much will a typical respondent understand about the research project? If respondents do not understand what I am telling them, is their consent to participate really informed?” These questions and variations on them plague researchers as they try to define their obligations to respondents. 14 ASKING QUESTIONS The Important Role of Institutional Review Boards Research conducted today within a university or medical research setting that receives support from federal grants requires that protocols for informing research participants about their participation risks and for ascertaining their informed consent must be approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) composed of both peers and lay members of the community. Although the motivating force to establish IRBs was to ensure that participants in biomedical experiments or clinical trials were adequately informed about the risks to their health in taking part in the experiment, the review procedures have been extended little by little to include all research involving human participants whether it involves health or not and whether it is supported by the federal government or not. Many IRBs now require review even of pilot tests and focus groups that are intended to pretest a survey instrument prior to its use in the field. Fortunately, most IRBs have a special procedure to expedite review of protocols for surveys that do not involve sensitive topics or that involve respondents who are not in a special risk category. (Respondents who might be in a special risk category include minors or those participating in drug treatment programs.) In some cases, however, IRBs whose members are not familiar with social research have placed requirements on survey researchers for written consent forms that are more appropriate for biomedical research projects than for population-based surveys. As noted earlier, obtaining an interview requires a delicate negotiation between the interviewers (and researcher) and the selected respondents. The negotiation must balance privacy and confidentiality issues against the benefits of participating in the survey. If the requirements for elaborate signed consent forms become excessive or inappropriate to the risks of participating, participation rates will fall to levels that may not be high enough to justify the research. Respondents in the vast majority of surveys are not “at risk,” where risk is thought of as the possibility that harm may come THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 15 to respondents as a consequence of their answering questions. However, some surveys do ask about illegal or socially disapproved of behavior that could constitute a nonphysical risk. In such cases, respondents’ answers, if revealed to others, might result in social embarrassment or prosecution. For those surveys extra care is taken to ensure confidentiality and security of the responses. In other instances a survey may contain questions that will make some respondents anxious and uncomfortable. A recent study asked World War II veterans to respond to questions regarding how their combat experience influenced subsequent attitudes and longterm behaviors (Sudman and Wansink, 2002). Even though the events occurred more than fifty years ago, many individuals chose to skip the section related to their combat experiences. If these studies are being conducted with personal interviews, carefully and thoroughly training interviewers can help remove such anxiety and discomfort. Professional interviewers are excellent at creating an environment in which respondents can talk about personal matters without embarrassment. In fact, this professional, nonjudgmental questioning is one of the ways that survey interviews differ from ordinary conversations. If questions elicit anxiety from respondents for personal reasons, however, the interviewer can do little other than inform the respondent as fully as possible about the survey’s subject matter. Interviewers typically inform respondents of the general purpose and scope of the survey, answering freely any questions the respondents ask. If the survey contains questions that might be sensitive or personal, respondents should be told that such questions will be in the interview schedule and that they do not have to answer them if they do not wish to do so. Written consent is not typically obtained because it is usually clear that participation is voluntary. If the interviewer will have to obtain information from records as well as directly from the respondent—for example, if a respondent’s report about an illness must be checked against hospital records—written permission to consult the records must be ob- 16 ASKING QUESTIONS tained. For many interviews with minors, written permission from parents or legal guardians must be obtained. Helping Guarantee Anonymity Does informed consent imply that the respondent must be explicitly told that participation in the survey is voluntary? Many practitioners feel that informing the respondent of the general nature of the survey and assuring confidentiality make it sufficiently clear that participation is voluntary. In some cases, informing respondents about the general nature of the survey can be as simple as saying, “This survey will ask you about your shopping behaviors” or “We will be asking you about your attitudes toward various leisure activities.” To go beyond the ordinary norms of such situations is to raise the suspicions of respondents that something is not quite right about this survey. For example, Singer (1978) found that even a request for a signature reduced the response rate for the questionnaire as a whole. In another study (Wansink, Cheney, and Chan, 2003), a split-half mailing that asked five hundred people to write their name and address on the back of a survey yielded a 23 percent decrease in response. Under certain circumstances merely asking a question might be harmful to respondents. For example, if you were conducting a follow-up survey of individuals who had been in a drug or alcohol rehabilitation program, the very fact that respondents were approached for an interview would indicate that they had been in the program. If they did not want that fact known to family or friends, any contact and attempt to ask questions might give rise to mental stress. Here problems of privacy, consent, and confidentiality are thoroughly entwined. In such cases it is important to protect the respondents’ privacy, to ensure that they will not be “at risk,” and to keep information confidential. To do so, great attention must be given to research procedures to ensure the respondent (or his or her relationship with friends, families, or employers) is not harmed. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 17 This attention needs to begin prior to the first attempt to contact respondents and must continue through to the completion of the research. Except in special cases of some surveys involving substance abuse and other topics collected under a “shield law,” individual responses to surveys are not protected from subpoena by law enforcement officials or attorneys if the individuals are involved in a lawsuit. The fact that the researcher has promised confidentiality to the respondents will not protect the researcher from having to produce the individual records if required by legal action. As a matter of prudence, judges often deny requests from attorneys or legal officers for access to individual records, but they balance the requirements of justice in each case against the public good of protecting the confidentiality of research records. The only way researchers can be sure to keep individual data confidential—if it is not protected by a shield law—is to destroy the names and addresses of respondents and any links between the responses and names. Unless the names and addresses are required for follow-up interviews in a longitudinal study, it is best to destroy as soon as possible any data that could potentially identify the respondent. In some cases, this can also include data on variables that could be used to infer an individual’s identity, such as birth dates, treatment dates, and other detailed information. In cases where names and addresses are needed for longitudinal studies, two separate files should be established, one for the names and one for the location data, with a third file containing the code necessary to link the two files. The identifier files can be kept in a separate and secure site that has the maximum protection possible. In one case, there was reason to expect that the identifier files might be subpoenaed and misused in a way that would reveal the identities of all individuals in the file. In this case, the identifier files were kept in a country where they are not subject to U.S. subpoena. The intent of such seemingly exceptional measures is to protect the privacy of respondents by making it as difficult as possible to link individual identifier data with the 18 ASKING QUESTIONS substantive data. Besides protecting the trust under which the data were collected, this also helps avoid inadvertent disclosure and makes the cost of obtaining the linked data very high for those who might be fishing for something useful in a legal case. How Much Do Respondents Need to Know? Most survey researchers limit themselves to rather general descriptions of the subject matter of the survey. Most respondents’ refusals occur before the interviewers have had time to explain fully the purposes of the survey. For the vast majority of sample surveys, the question is not really one of informed consent but, rather, one of “uninformed refusal.” Participation in surveys is more a function of the potential respondents’ general attitude toward surveys than of the content of a specific survey. Sharp and Frankel (1981) found that people who refuse to participate in surveys are more negative about surveys in general, more withdrawn and isolated from their environment, and more concerned about maintaining their privacy, regardless of the purpose of the survey. Today, refusals may also occur simply because of an increased amount of perceived or actual time pressure. In sum, it is your ethical responsibility as a researcher to inform the respondent as fully as is appropriate about the purposes of the survey, to explain the general content of the questions, and to answer any questions the respondent may have about the nature of either the scholarship or the sponsorship of the research and how the data will be used. In addition, you should inform respondents about the degree to which their answers will be held confidential. Although you must make every effort to ensure that that degree of confidentiality is maintained, you must not promise a higher degree of confidentiality than you can in fact achieve. Thus, for example, if the conditions of the survey do not allow you to maintain confidentiality against subpoenas, you should not so promise your respondents. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 19 The Research Question Versus the Actual Question Being Asked In discussing questionnaire development, we must distinguish between the research question and the particular questions that you ask respondents in order to answer the research question. The research question defines the purposes of the study and is the touchstone against which decisions are made about the specific individual questions to be included in the questionnaire. The research question is most often general and may involve abstract concepts that would not be easily understood by the respondents being surveyed. For example, you may want to determine the attitudes of the American public on gun control, the effects of a particular television program on health information and health practices of those who view it, or whether an increase in automation is resulting in an increase in worker alienation. Articulating the Specific Purpose of the Study Regardless of whether the purpose of the research is to test a social scientific theory or to estimate the distribution of certain attitudes or behaviors in a population, the procedures for questionnaire construction are similar. First you will need to identify the concepts involved in the research question. Then you will formulate specific questions that, when combined and analyzed, will measure these key concepts. For example, if you are interested in the attitudes of potential voters toward a particular candidate, you will have to decide which attitudes are important for the topic at hand: attitudes about the particular positions the candidate holds, attitudes about the candidate’s personality, or attitudes about the candidate’s likability. The more clearly formulated and precise the research question, the more easily the actual questions can be written and the questionnaire designed. The process of trying to write specific questions for a survey helps clarify the research question. When there are ambiguities in 20 ASKING QUESTIONS question wording or alternative ways of wording questions, decisions about formulating questions must be consistent with the original purposes of the survey. Often the purposes themselves may not be very clear and must be further refined before a final choice can be made. For instance, if you were conducting a survey with the purpose of deciding whether a potential candidate should run for a particular office, you might be interested in how much respondents know about the person, what political views they identify with that person, and what they are looking for in a good candidate. In contrast, if you were conducting a survey for a candidate who had already declared her intention to run for office, you might be more interested in what respondents think about the candidate’s stand on particular issues and whether they intend to vote for that candidate. Writing Questions that Relate to the Purpose of the Study Even when surveys are being conducted on the same topic, very different questions might be asked depending on the specific purpose of the study. For example, most surveys ask about the educational level of the respondent. If, for the purposes of your survey, a grouping of respondents into three or four levels of education will suffice, then a simple question like “What is the highest grade you completed in school?” with three or four response categories may well serve the purpose. If, however, the purposes of your survey require that the educational level of the population be precisely estimated, you would need considerably more detail about education—making distinctions, for example, between degrees granted and years of education started but not completed. Because the way in which questions are asked is intimately tied to the purposes of the survey, there is no “standard” way to ask about personal characteristics, such as education and income. (See the discussion in Chapter Nine.) As a general rule, when constructing a questionnaire, you must continuously ask “Why am I asking this question?” and must, in each instance, be able to explain how the question is closely related to the research question that underlies the survey. Our training as THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 21 researchers has always led us to believe that more information is good. Unfortunately, it becomes costly if we lose our focus when constructing a survey. The problem usually begins with someone saying, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to know. . . ?” The problem is that when the resulting cross-tabs, bar charts, or pie charts are presented, a great deal of time and money has been spent and we may not be much wiser than prior to the research. It is critical to keep focused on the basic research question. Suggestions for Beginners The process of writing questions is fun, and well-written questions can quickly engage the interest of the participants. Competition develops among the question writers to see who can come up with the cleverest or most interesting questions. Given our biases toward more information, a game of “Wouldn’t it be nice to know?” can quickly ensue, and soon there are many more questions than the budget can afford or than respondents can endure. Too often questionnaire writers are so caught up in the excitement of question writing that they jump rapidly into writing questions before they have adequately formulated the goals of the research and thoroughly understood the research questions. Many questionnaires constructed by inexperienced people look as if the researchers did not know what they were trying to find out until they saw what they had asked. To develop a good questionnaire, observe the following rules: 1. Resist the impulse to write specific questions until you have thought through your research questions. 2. Write down your research questions and have a hard copy available when you are working on the questionnaire. 3. Every time you write a question, ask yourself “Why do I want to know this?” Answer it in terms of the way it will help you to answer your research question. “It would be interesting to know” is not an acceptable answer. 22 ASKING QUESTIONS Use Questions from Other Surveys It is always useful before creating new questions to search for questions on the same topic that have been asked by other researchers. This can justify your questions and provide an important point of comparison. In academic research, using validated scales is critical for research to be publishable in key journals. Yet satisfactory existing questions are unlikely to cover all the research questions of a study. Most questionnaires consist of some questions that have been used before and some new questions, although even the new questions may be adapted from earlier ones. Using existing questions will shortcut the testing process and may also allow you to compare results across studies. For studies done with similar populations and in similar contexts and where there is no reason to expect changes, using identical questions allows you to estimate response reliability. Over longer time periods or where changes are expected, using the same question permits estimates of trends. Some researchers have ethical concerns about using another person’s questions, but the replicating nature of social science research in general and survey research in particular not only permit but encourage the repetition of questions. Normally, no permission from the originator of the question is required or expected. You may, however, want to communicate with the question originator to learn whether there were any difficulties with the question that were not discussed in the published sources. If you want to use items from a questionnaire that has been copyrighted, permission from the publisher, and probably the payment of a small fee, would be required. Generally, in any given report, it will be important to acknowledge the source of any questions that are asked. However, researchers are becoming increasingly aware that simply replicating questions might not be so simple as it seems on the surface. Attention must also be paid to the context within which particular questions are asked, since responses to some questions are sensitive to THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 23 the context defined by the questions asked prior to them (Schuman and Presser, 1981; Sudman, Bradburn, and Schwarz, 1996). If you are interested in the trend in responses to a question over time, pay particular attention to the preceding questions asked in the studies where the question was previously used. (The order of questions in a questionnaire is discussed in Chapter Ten.) Once you start looking, you will be surprised at the variety of sources that can provide examples of earlier questions on a topic. The two major sources of survey questions are published material and data archives. Although we list a few of the major sources and archives, the list is intended to be suggestive rather than complete. Getting help from an available research librarian or information specialist can be very helpful. Finding Good Questions from Other Surveys We assume that a careful literature search has been conducted to help define the research questions. When a reference is a complete book, a copy of the questionnaire will often be included as an appendix. In journal articles, however, the questionnaire will usually be omitted due to lack of space. In this case it is appropriate to write to the author of the study and ask for a copy of the questionnaire. More general sources of questions include the following: Gallup, G. H. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1971. (3 vols.). Gallup, G. H. The Gallup Poll. Public Opinion, 1972–1977. (2 vols.) Hastings, E. H., and Hastings, P. K. (eds.). Index to International Public Opinion, 1978–1979. National Opinion Research Center. General Social Surveys, 1972–2002: Cumulative Codebook. New York Times/CBS News polls, as indexed in The New York Times Index. 24 ASKING QUESTIONS Opinion Roundup section of the Public Opinion Polls section of Public Opinion Quarterly. Robinson, J. P., Rusk, J. G., and Head, K. B. Measures of Political Attitudes. Robinson, J. P., and Shaver, P. R. Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes. (Rev. ed.) Roper Public Opinion Research Center. Survey Data for Trend Analysis: An Index to Repeated Questions in U.S. National Surveys Held by the Roper Public Opinion Research Center. Some of the largest American archives of survey research data are listed next. (Refer also to the Appendix for a list of the major not-for-profit survey research labs in North America and Europe.) There will normally be some charge for locating and reproducing questions and results. In addition, government, university, and other nonprofit survey organizations will usually make their questions and questionnaires available to others, even if they have no formal archives. Data and Program Library Service, University of Wisconsin, 4451 Social Science Building, Madison, WI 53706 Institute for Research in Social Science, Manning Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 (Institute for Social Research archives are at the same address.) National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, 6030 South Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637 Roper Public Opinion Research Center, 341 Mansfield Road, Unit 1164, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269 Survey Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 Survey Research Lab, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL 61820 THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 25 This search for existing questions sometimes becomes tedious and time-consuming, but it is time well spent. Even if you ultimately use only a few existing questions, the search generally helps you sharpen the research question and improve the quality of the new questions that you write. Consider the following caveats when adapting questions from other sources. Very small changes in wording or in the response categories offered can result in large differences in results. Within a year of each other, three polls (see Figure 1.1) asked representative samples of Americans about who they believed to be the greatest male athlete of the twentieth century (closed-ended), the greatest male or female athlete living at any point in the twentieth century (open-ended), and the greatest active athlete in the world of sports today (open-ended). Although all were taken within one year of each other, there is very little correspondence between the three. This underscores the importance of making certain any questions that are borrowed or replicated from another source specifically identify the issue that is of primary interest to your research question. Sources of Error in Responses Since questionnaires are designed to elicit information from respondents, the quality of a question can be measured by the degree to which it elicits the information that the researcher desires. This criterion is called validity. Directly measuring the validity of questions is often difficult and depends on the nature of the question. Different Types of Questions Have Different Errors We find it useful to divide questions into the following three groups: (1) those that ask about behavior or facts, (2) those that ask about knowledge, and (3) those that ask about psychological states or attitudes. Behavioral or factual questions ask about characteristics of people, things people have done, or things that have happened 26 ASKING QUESTIONS THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 27 Figure 1.1. Who is the World’s Greatest Athlete? NBC News/ Gallup/CNN/ Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Gallup Poll, Sept. 9-12, 1999 Dec. 20-21, 1999 Aug. 24-27, 2000 (N = 1,010) (N = 1,031) (N = 1,019) “What man or woman living anytime this “Which one of the century do you “In your opinion, following do you think was the great- who is the consider to be the est athlete of the greatest athlete greatest American century, in terms active in the male athlete of the of their athletic world of sports 20th century?” performance?” today?” (closed-ended) (open-ended) (open-ended) % % % Michael Jordan 35 23 4 Babe Ruth 13 4 0 Muhammad Ali 11 0 0 Jim Thorpe 11 4 0 Jesse Owens 10 3 0 Jackie Robinson 7 0 0 Jack Nicklaus 2 0 0 Johnny Unitas 1 0 0 Mark McGwire n/a 9 3 Walter Payton n/a 2 0 Jackie Joyner-Kersee n/a 2 0 Tiger Woods n/a 0 30 Cal Ripken n/a 0 2 Other 1* 27* 26* No Opinion, Not Sure, or None 9 26 35 *1% or less apiece to people that are, in principle, verifiable by an external observer. That is, behavioral questions concern characteristics, events, or acts that are external to the individual and could be observed by a third party. (To say that they are in principle verifiable does not mean, of course, that it would be easy to verify them or, in some cases, that it is even legal or ethically permissible to verify them, such as with voting records or sexual behavior.) Questions about knowledge measure respondents’ knowledge about a topic of interest or their cognitive skills. In sample surveys, knowledge questions are often combined with attitude or behavior questions to gauge the saliency of an issue or the outcome of a program. Questions that have the form of knowledge questions are sometimes used as disguised attitude questions. More rigorous forms of measuring knowledge, as in knowledge tests, are frequently used to survey schooling outcomes. The field of psychometrics deals with the sophisticated statistical techniques for the reliable and valid measurement of knowledge. Discussion of these techniques is beyond the scope of this book. Researchers interested in the serious measurement of knowledge should consult with a psychometrician in developing their questionnaires. Questions about psychological states or attitudes are not verifiable even in principle, since states or attitudes exist only in the minds of the individuals and are directly accessible, if at all, only to the individuals concerned. Psychological states or attitudes are not available to an external observer. For behavior, the notion of validity has an intuitive meaning, as the value that would be agreed on by several external observers observing the same event. For attitudes, the intuitive meaning of validity is not clear. Should the measure of validity be what respondents tell about themselves in moments of privacy with their most intimate friends, or should it be what has a strong relationship to actual behavior? The answer lies more in one’s theoretical conceptualization of attitudes than in generally agreed-on criteria. Even though one may not have a clear idea about validity criteria for attitude questions, it is nonetheless certain that differing ways 28 ASKING QUESTIONS of asking questions may produce quite different answers and that questions about some attitudes are more susceptible to questionwording differences than others. We do not yet know the detailed mechanisms that produce such changes, but we are beginning to understand the cognitive processes involved. (See Sudman, Bradburn, and Schwarz, 1996, and Tourangeau, Rips, and Rasinski, 2000, for a more complete discussion.) It is clear, however, that some attitudes are more variable in their measurement than others. The Difference Between Bias and Variability In our thinking about these issues, we have used the concept of response effect to include components of bias and variability. Bias refers to an estimate that is either more or less than the true value. Variability is measured by the susceptibility of measurements to differences in question wording. This variability is sometimes called the reliability of a measure, since random errors may arise from the form of the measurement itself (rather than from systematic error due to a sample bias or some other aspect of the measurement instrument). In order to clarify the sources of response effects, let us look at a particular behavioral question. A common question in surveys is “What was your total family income from all sources last year?” There is a true answer to this question, even though we may never know what it is since even income tax records, assuming that we had access to them, contain their own source of error. However, even though there is a true answer to this question, we may get an erroneous answer because the respondent simply forgot about certain amounts of income, particularly those from less obvious sources (such as dividends from a stock or interest on a savings account), or because the respondent may attribute income to the wrong year. The incorrect placement of events in a particular time period is called telescoping. In forward telescoping, the respondent includes events from a previous time period in the period being asked about; in backward telescoping, the respondent pushes events backward into a time period previous to the one being asked about. Forward THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 29 telescoping typically results in overreporting of events; backward telescoping typically results in underreporting. Both forward and backward telescoping may occur with the same frequency in a survey, so that the two may cancel each other out. However, studies show that forward telescoping is more common, resulting in a net overreporting of the telescoped material in most surveys. Motivated and Unmotivated Biases Another form of error would be the deliberate or motivated nonreporting of income that the respondent wishes to conceal—for example, illegal income or income not reported to the IRS. Another source of error arises from the deliberate overstating or understating of income in order to make an impression on the interviewer. Generally this type of error shows in income inflation, but some respondents, particularly in the upper income ranges, may deflate their reported incomes. Yet another source of error stems from the respondent’s failure to understand the question in the way the researcher intended. For example, the respondent may fail to report gift income, even though this type of income was intended by the researcher to be included. Finally, respondents may simply be ignorant of some income (perhaps income received by family members) about which they are asked to report. This rather involved collection of errors can be identified by four basic factors related to response error: memory, motivation, communication, and knowledge. Material may be forgotten, or the time at which something happened may be remembered incorrectly. Respondents may be motivated not to tell the truth because of fear of consequences or because they want to present themselves in a favorable light. Respondents may not understand what they are being asked, and answer the question in terms of their own understanding. Finally, they may just not know the answer to the question, and answer it without indicating their lack of knowledge. In the chapters that follow, these factors and the way they affect the business of asking questions will be explored in greater detail. 30 ASKING QUESTIONS Additional Reading Consult the references listed in this chapter (in the section on “Suggestions for Beginners”) for additional examples of questionnaire wordings and their effect on responses. The Polls section of Public Opinion Quarterly is especially useful. It summarizes questions on different topics in each issue. In addition, the following readings may be useful. The Psychology of Survey Response (Tourangeau, Rips, and Rasinski, 2000) and Thinking About Answers (Sudman, Bradburn, and Schwarz, 1996) present conceptual frameworks and extensive scientific evidence for understanding response effects in surveys. They are recommended to the reader who wishes to pursue the conceptualization and literature behind the recommendations given in this book. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKING 31 Part Two Tactics for Asking Questions Chapter Two Asking Nonthreatening Questions About Behavior The most direct and probably the most common questions asked of respondents relate to their behavior. It is hard for a novice question writer to see any problems with a question like “Do you own or rent your place of residence?” or “What brand of coffee did you buy the last time you purchased coffee?” Nevertheless, such questions are not so simple and straightforward as they might first appear. Questions about behavior may be viewed as threatening and may result in biased reports. Clearly, it is more difficult to ask a question about child abuse or spousal abuse than about owning a television set. But even questions about such topics as voting in a recent election or owning a library card may be threatening enough to disrupt the smooth interaction between the interviewer and the respondent. This interruption may come about because the question causes respondents some discomfort or because the respondents believe that the truthful answer to the question will put them in a bad light and cause the interviewer to think less well of them. We defer the topic of asking threatening questions to the next chapter and limit the discussion here to questions that are not threatening (or, at least, not very threatening). Such questions may relate, for instance, to work activities, ownership or purchases of consumer goods, some forms of health-related behavior, social interactions with others, or vacation and travel behavior. Questions on household composition, income, employment, and other demographic characteristics might be discussed here but are deferred to Chapter Nine, where standard wordings are suggested. 35 As we shall see later, both threatening behavior questions (Chapter Three) and attitude questions (Chapter Five) are very sensitive to question wording. Although nonthreatening behavior questions are less sensitive to wording changes than other questions, they are influenced by comprehension and memory. When these questions are correctly comprehended, the most serious problem with nonthreatening behavioral questions is that human memory is fallible and depends on the length and recency of the time period and on the saliency of the topic. In this chapter we discuss what is known about memory errors and then suggest a series of strategies for reducing these errors. Checklist of Major Points 1. Decide whether the question is or is not threatening. If threatening, see also Chapter Three. 2. When asking a closed-ended question about behavior, make sure that all reasonable alternative answers are included. Omitted alternatives and answers that are lumped into an “Other” category will be underreported. 3. Aided-recall procedures may be helpful if the major problem is underreporting of behavior. 4. Make the question as specific as possible. More reliable information is obtained when you ask about behavior in an exact time period instead of asking generally about respondents’ usual behavior. If the goal, however, is simply to group respondents into categories rather than precisely measure their behavior, such questions do not have to be so precisely worded. 5. The time period of the question should be related to the saliency of the topic. Periods of a year (or sometimes even longer) can be used for highly salient topics, such as purchase of a new house, birth of a child, or a serious auto accident. 36 ASKING QUESTIONS Periods of a month or less should be used for items with low saliency, such as purchases of clothing and minor household appliances. Periods that are too short, however, should be avoided, since forward telescoping (remembering the event as having occurred more recently than it did) can cause substantial overreporting of behavior. 6. For regular, frequent behavior, respondents will estimate the number of events by using the basic rate they have stored in memory. Accuracy of these estimates can be improved by asking about exceptions to respondents’ regular behavior. 7. The use of secondary records (where available), household observation, and bounded recall will reduce or eliminate telescoping and also improve the reporting of detailed information. 8. Where detailed information on frequent, low-salience behavior is required, providing diaries will result in more accurate results than memory. 9. Use words that virtually all respondents will understand. Do not use special terms or vocabulary unless all members of the sample would be expected to know them or the term is explained in the question. 10. Increasing the length of the question by adding memory cues may improve the quality of reporting. Do not assume that the shorter questions are necessarily better. 11. Recognize that, for nonthreatening behavior, respondents will generally give more accurate information about themselves than about relatives, friends, or coworkers. If cost is a factor, however, informants can provide reasonably accurate information about others, such as parents about children, and spouses about each other. Ten Examples of Behavioral Questions We start with examples of questions used by various government and other survey agencies for collecting information about behavior. ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 37 These questions represent the work of professional questionnaire designers. All have undergone careful review and pretesting. Nevertheless, they are not immune from the memory and other problems that we discuss later in this chapter. Outdoor Recreational Activities Figure 2.1 illustrates a series of questions about outdoor recreational activities. Part 1, which asks only whether the respondent ever did an activity during the last twelve months, is considerably easier to answer than Part 2, which asks for the number of times the respondent participated. Limiting participation to that in the State of Illinois makes the question still more complex. As we shall discuss later in the chapter, it is highly likely that respondents who frequently engage in an activity will not count individual episodes but will estimate. The period for activities is extended to a year because many of these activities are seasonal; a survey conducted in the winter would get no data on summer sports. Jogging There are several interesting wording uses in the Gallup question on jogging, shown in Figure 2.2. The use of the words “happen to” in the question “Do you happen to jog, or not?” is intended to reduce or eliminate social desirability biases. Although jogging appears to be a nonthreatening topic, some respondents who do not jog might be tempted to report that they did, because jogging is popular and associated with health and fitness. Similarly, adding the words “or not” is intended to give equal weight to both the positive and the negative answer. Although the responses to this question from the 1996 Gallup Poll might not differ substantially from those to the simpler question “Do you jog?” the additional words are intended to ensure the accuracy of the results. 38 ASKING QUESTIONS ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 39 Figure 2.1. Outdoor Recreation Survey. 1. First, I’d like to get a general idea about the specific kinds of things you do for recreation or to relax. I have a list of activities people sometimes do. Please think back over the past month, since . As I read each activity, please tell me whether or not you have done it this past month. Did you . . . Yes No A. Go to a movie?

B. Dine at a restaurant for pleasure?

C. Go window shopping?

D. Go to a theater or concert?

E. Go on a picnic?

F. Go hunting or fishing?

G. Read for pleasure?

H. Take a ride in an automobile for pleasure?

I. Do gardening for pleasure?

J. Participate in a civic or religious organization or club?

K. Go for a walk or a hike?

L. Go to a professional, college, or high school sports event?

2. Now, I have some questions about sports. Please think back over the past year, since . Did you . . . (Enter date 1 year ago today) Yes No A. Play badminton?

B. Play basketball?

C. Go bowling?

D. Play football?

E. Play golf?

F. Play racketball, handball, paddleball, or squash?

G. Play softball or baseball?

H. Swim?

I. Play tennis?

Source: National Opinion Research Center, 1975. Note also the explanations given in the body of Question 1. Respondents may not know what is meant by the word “regularly.” Some might assume that it meant monthly or weekly, and some might ask the interviewer to clarify the word, which could then force the interviewer to decide what the word meant. By specifying “on a daily basis,” the question removes or reduces the uncertainty. Respondents who miss an occasional day may still be uncertain, but most respondents will not be. Also, in earlier surveys some respondents had answered “yes” to this question because they believed that their job helped to keep them physically fit. By excluding work “at a job,” the question makes it clear that only non-work-related activities are to be considered here. Health Services Figure 2.3 presents a condensed series of questions on the source and on the frequency of medical care (Survey Research Laboratory [SRL], 1993, 1978). (Attitudinal questions that were part of this series have been omitted.) The first question asking about visits to a medical doctor in the last year is widely used and seems straightforward, but it may be difficult for some respondents to know what is meant. Should they or shouldn’t they include visits to the doctor’s office for an allergy shot? Does it matter if the shot is given by the doctor or a nurse? The series of questions about the usual source of medical care does not directly ask about one or more specific events; instead, the respondent is asked to first perform a series of memory tasks and to then perform a series of comparison and averaging tasks. Thus, these questions appear to be difficult. Nevertheless, virtually all respondents were able to answer these questions, and the answers were sufficiently accurate to distinguish between respondents who had medical care readily available, those who had difficulty in obtaining care, and those who had no source of care. 40 ASKING QUESTIONS ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 41 Figure 2.2. Questions on Exercise. 1. Aside from any work you do here at home or at a job, do you do anything regularly—that is, on a daily basis—that helps you keep physically fit?
Yes
No 2. a. Do you happen to jog, or not?
Yes
No b. On the average, how far do you usually jog in terms of miles or fractions of miles? ________ miles Source: Gallup, 1978. Figure 2.3. Questions on Health Care. 1. During the last year, how many times did you see or talk to a medical doctor? times 2. Is there one particular person or place where you usually go for health care?
Yes
No (Skip to Q. 7.) 3. Have you been using this person or place as your usual source of health care for . . .
Less than 6 months
6 months to 1 year
More than 1 year but less than 3 years
3 to 5 years, or
More than 5 years? Source: Survey Research Laboratory, 1993. Household Health Diary Another procedure for obtaining health information is the use of a diary for recording events as they occur. Figure 2.4 illustrates a sample page from such a diary, including instructions, and sample entries inserted in the blanks. The diary also includes sections on “felt ill but went to work or school,” “visited or called a doctor,” “went to a hospital,” “obtained medical supplies,” and “paid doctor or hospital bills.” Although it would have been possible to ask about the details of the illness, such as why did the person feel ill, and what medicine or treatment was used, this information would be difficult to recall, especially for minor illnesses such as colds and headaches. Childrearing Practices Two comments can be made about the questions on childrearing shown in Figure 2.5. The first question is an open-ended, fieldcoded question (SRL, 1978). That is, respondents are not given the answers, but the interviewers have a list of categories into which to put the answers. (If the response is ambiguous, this procedure may introduce an additional source of error. This problem is especially important for attitude questions. Field coding is discussed in greater detail in Chapter Six.) Note that multiple answers are allowed but are not actively sought. Question 4 is a two-part question with skip instructions. The B part would be asked only if a “yes” is obtained in part A. Both the numbering and the skip instructions help guide the interviewer in asking questions of the respondents. Religious Practices Figure 2.6 illustrates that the Gallup Poll’s wordings on religious questions (2001) are similar to its wordings on the jogging question in Figure 2.2. It might be argued that membership in a church or 42 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 2.4. Household Health Diary. STAYED HOME FROM WORK OR SCHOOL OR COULD NOT DO USUAL HOUSEHOLD TASKS List all illnesses during this month to all household members who had to stay home from school, work, or could not do their usual job. If the same person starts off a little sick, but goes to work for two days and then stays home for two more days until he is recovered, you would report the first two days on page 5 and the last two days on page 3. SAMPLE Did they stay in bed all or What medicine or treatment was used? Date first Who in Why did they stay home? part of the day? (Check one) stayed Date resumed the family? (Headache, cold, cramps, (Check one) Prescription If other, home usual activities (First name) sprained ankle, etc.) Yes No None (Name, if known) what? Oct. 7 Oct. 9 John Flu X Aspirin Oct. 13 Oct. 14 Mary Stomach cramps X X Oct. 14 Oct. 19 John Jr. Dislocated shoulder X Plaster cast Source: Survey Research Laboratory, 1976. 44 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 2.5. Questions on Childrearing. 1. Where does your son/daughter regularly play or spend his/her free time? (Check all codes that apply.)
At home
In school
In someone else’s house
Just outside the house or in the yard
In the street
In a playground or park
In a community building or community center
Other (Specify)
Don’t know 2. Does your son/daughter have a place at home where he/she can read or study in quiet?
Yes
No 3. Do you have any special time you set aside for being with children?
Yes
No 4. a. Do any of the following ever take care of your children? Neighbors
Yes
No Relatives
Yes
No Friends
Yes
No Teenagers
Yes
No Daycare center
Yes
No Nursery school
Yes
No Something else (Specify) (If all “No,” skip to Q. 7.) b. In an average week, how many hours are your children/is your child taken care of by someone other than yourself/you or your husband? hours Source: Survey Research Laboratory, 1978. synagogue is a deliberate event and does not just happen. The same question asked in the General Social Survey simply asks, ”Are you, yourself a member of a church or synagogue?” Readers may wonder whether religion is a sensitive topic. For several decades the U.S. Census and other government sample surveys have not asked about religion because of concerns about the separation between church and state. Nevertheless, nongovernmental survey organizations have uniformly found that religion is not a sensitive topic and that reports of religious behavior are easy to obtain. In behavior questions the word you may often be confusing, since it may refer to the respondent or to all the members of the household. To avoid this confusion, use of “you, yourself” is often helpful when there may be ambiguity. Lawyers’ Survey Special problems arise in non-household surveys. The lawyers’ survey (Figure 2.7) was conducted by mail. This may well be an advantage for questions such as 3B and 3C, which ask for information on number of attorneys and other employees in the firm. In large firms the respondent would probably not have this information at hand and would need to spend a little time getting the count. Many business surveys are done by mail, so that respondents have a chance to collect the information. An alternative is to ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 45 Figure 2.6. Questions on Religion. A. Do you happen to be a member of a church or synagogue, or not?
Member
Not a member (Skip to Q. 2) B. Did you, yourself, happen to attend church or synagogue in the last seven days?
Yes
No Source: Gallup, 2001. 46 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 2.7. Questions in Lawyers’ Survey. 1. In what year were you first admitted to the practice of law in any state? 2. a. Are you currently engaged in the practice of law?
Yes, in private practice (Go to Q. 3a.)
Yes, in nonprivate practice (Answer Q. 2b.)
No, retired (Go to Q. 4.)
No, in non-lawyer occupation (Go to Q. 4.) b. Which one of the following best describes your legal occupation?
Business legal staff
Government attorney
Legal aid attorney or public defender
Member of the judiciary
Law faculty
Other (Specify) (If not in private practice, go to Q. 4.) 3. a. Are you a sole practitioner, a partner, a shareholder, or an associate?
Sole practitioner
Partner or shareholder
Associate b. How many other attorneys practice with your firm? (1) Partners or shareholders (2) Associates c. How many employees other than attorneys work for your firm as . . . (1) Secretaries? (2) Legal assistants/Paralegals? (3) Other? Source: Survey Research Laboratory, 1975. send the questionnaire ahead by mail, so that necessary information may be collected, but to obtain the final answers in a personal interview so that ambiguous answers can be clarified. This survey uses specialized language such as “sole practitioner,” “partner,” “associate,” and “paralegals.” The specialized language causes the lawyer respondents no difficulty, although these are not meaningful terms to most non-lawyers. Farm Innovation Study The same use of specialized language is seen in Figure 2.8, dealing with farm practices (SRL, 1974). Again, these terms did not cause the surveyed farmers any serious difficulties. The most problematic questions in this series are those asking “How many years ago did you first do (have) this?” Farmers who have been following these practices for many years will have trouble remembering the beginning date unless it corresponds to an important anchor point, such as the year the respondent started farming this particular land. It should be possible, however, to distinguish between farmers who adopted a practice in the last year or two and those who adopted it more than ten years ago. Business Expenditures Sometimes the questions ask for more specificity than respondents can provide. Figure 2.9 gives such an example from the 1997 Economic Census. In the survey used to generate this form, the representative of a hotel was asked to report sales for detailed merchandise and receipt lines, such as for distilled spirits, wine, and beer and ale. Many hotels do not keep records at this level of detail and are unable to report this information, even though estimation is permitted. Both the questionnaire writer and the data analyst (if these are not the same person) must take a balanced view to questions that put such a substantial strain on the respondent’s memory or records, even when the results are aggregated. On the one hand, questions ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 47 48 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 2.8. Questions on Farm Practices. 1. Did you operate a farm last year?
Yes
No (End interview) 2. Farmers often find that some farm practices are more suitable for their own farm than other practices. Here are some practices we’d like to ask you about. (If Yes) How many years ago did you first Yes No do (have) this? a. Do you use the futures market for selling grain?

b. Do you dry corn on the farm?

c. Do you use forward contract to sell crops?

d. Do you have narrow crop rows, 36" or less?

e. Do you use a large planter, 6 or 8 rows?

f. Do you have a chisel plow?

g. Do you use extension or USDA economic outlook information in planning farm business?

h. Do you have a program to regularly test the soil to determine fertilizer applications?

i. Do you keep farm records for reasons other than income tax?

j. Do you use reduced tillage?

3. a. Do you use contour farming?
Yes
No (Skip to Q. 4.) b. How many years ago did you first do this? c. Have you ever received money from the government for using contour farming?
Yes
No Source: Survey Research Laboratory, 1974. ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 49 Figure 2.9. 1997 Economic Census: Traveler Accommodations. 50 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 2.9. 1997 Economic Census: Traveler Accommodations, continued. ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 51 Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997. should not be summarily omitted because precise information cannot be obtained; ballpark information can sometimes be very valuable. On the other hand, analysts should avoid making precise analyses of such loose questions. It is a serious but unfortunately common error to use powerful multivariate procedures carried to three decimal points with questions where even the first significant figure is in doubt. Consumer Expenditure Survey Shown as Figure 2.10 are questions on ownership and purchasing of major household equipment items. (Only the first page is shown.) This was a panel study, and these questions were asked twice, one year apart. Asking questions at two different time periods has the major advantage of reducing error in the date of purchase, by a procedure called bounded recall. (Bounded recall will be discussed in greater detail later.) Note also that the accuracy of reports about ownership is increased because the interviewer and the respondent have the opportunity to examine both furniture and appliances. On this survey and on similar surveys, researchers are not interested merely in ownership or possession but in information more difficult to recall, such as that involving brand and price. How to Tell if a Question Is Threatening There is no standard method to determine whether a question is threatening or not. Some questions that are not threatening in general may be threatening to particular individuals for idiosyncratic reasons; they might remind the respondent of a recent painful event or they might be mistakenly interpreted as referring to something that is unique to that individual. The best we can do is determine whether a question is likely to be threatening to a large number of respondents. The easiest way to determine the threat of a question is to ask ourselves whether we believe respondents will feel there is a right or wrong answer to it. Certain behav- 52 ASKING QUESTIONS iors are seen by many people as socially desirable and therefore may be overreported. Examples follow. • Being a good citizen Registering to vote and voting Interacting with government officials Taking a role in community activities Knowing the issues • Being a well-informed and cultured person Reading newspapers, magazines, and books and using libraries Going to cultural events such as concerts, plays, and museum exhibits Participating in educational activities • Fulfilling moral and social responsibilities Giving to charity and helping friends in need Actively participating in family affairs and childrearing Being employed In contrast, the following are some examples of conditions or behavior that many people underreport in an interview: • Illnesses and disabilities Cancer Sexually transmitted diseases Mental illness • Illegal or contra-normative private behavior Committing a crime, including traffic violations Tax evasion Drug use • Consumption of alcoholic products • Sexual practices ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 53 Figure 2.10. Questions on Major Household Items. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001. Many behavioral questions, however, are not at all threatening, or are only mildly threatening. Of the questions given in the previous examples, only a few (those dealing with childrearing in Figure 2.5) might be considered threatening, and even here the threat may not be serious. In some ways, social changes over the past several decades have made the survey researcher’s task easier. It is now possible to ask questions about cancer, drug use, and sexual behavior that could not have been asked earlier. Only a few respondents will refuse to answer these questions. Unfortunately, this does not mean that such questions are no longer threatening. Not all respondents will find a particular question threatening. Thus, a question about smoking marijuana will not be threatening to those who have never smoked or to those who feel that there is absolutely nothing wrong with smoking marijuana. It will be threatening, however, to respondents who smoke but are afraid that the interviewer will disapprove of them if they admit it. If you are in doubt about whether a question is potentially threatening, the best approach is to use previous experience with the same or similar questions. If no previous experience is available, a small pilot test can be informative. (See the discussion in Chapter Eleven. If the question is threatening or possibly threatening, see Chapter Three.) Eight Ways to Make Behavioral Questions Easier to Answer In the past decade we have gained a better understanding of the methods respondents use to answer questions about behavioral frequencies and numerical quantities, such as “How many times have you done (behavior) in the past two weeks?” or “How many aunts, uncles, and cousins do you have?” It is now well recognized that for many such questions respondents do not attempt to answer by counting individual episodes or units. Instead they often simply 56 ASKING QUESTIONS make an estimate based on rates that are either stored in memory as schema or computed on the spot from a sample of available data. A general finding is that as the number of experiences of an event increases above five, respondents are more likely to estimate than to count (Blair and Burton, 1987). When behaviors are regular and similar, such as brushing one’s teeth or eating breakfast, estimation will result in more accurate responses than counting (Menon, 1997). The selection of the time period influences whether respondents count or estimate. Data users unfamiliar with cognitive processes often believe they can obtain much more information by increasing the length of the time period that a question covers, but this belief is illusory. If the behavior is frequent, irregular, and relatively unimportant, such as making a telephone call or buying gasoline for one’s car, respondents asked about a short time period will simply count and report the number of events retrieved. Respondents asked about a longer time period, will typically count for a short time period and then compute an answer based on this rate. Not only does the longer time period not provide additional information, it may increase the possibility of a computation error when the respondent is required to extrapolate. If the behavior is regular, respondents will already have a rate stored in memory and will simply retrieve this rate and apply it to whatever time period is specified. It is obvious that increasing the time period for regular behaviors has no effect on the amount of data obtained. For example, if respondents are asked how many times they brush their teeth in a given period of time, they would simply multiple their daily rate by the number of days in the time period they are asked to report. Only for infrequent, irregular behavior, such as buying consumer durables or going to the doctor, does increasing the length of the time period increase the amount of information retrieved. There are eight proven methods for improving the quality of reporting if respondents count. ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 57 Use Aided Recall In its most general sense, an aided-recall procedure is one that provides one or more memory cues to the respondent as part of the question. The questions in Figure 2.1 illustrate one form of aided recall. Rather than asking “What do you do for outdoor recreation?” the questions focus on specific activities and sports. Another form of this method is to put examples into the question, such as “How many organizations do you belong to—for example, unions, churches, fraternal organizations?” Similarly, respondents may be shown a card containing a list of books, magazines, and newspapers and asked which they have read in the past month. Aided recall may also be used with knowledge questions and with cards listing well-known persons, products, or organizations. This use is discussed in Chapter Six. A final form of aided recall is the household inventory conducted jointly by the respondent and the interviewer. These household inventories can be used to determine the presence of furniture, appliances, books and magazines, and goods such as food, soap, and cleaning products. Unless the product has been totally consumed, its presence is a memory aid. Aided-recall procedures produce higher levels of reported behavior than unaided procedures do (Sudman and Bradburn, 1974), since they can help respondents remember events that would otherwise be forgotten. Precautions When Using Aided Recall. Certain precautions must be observed, however, when aided recall is used. First, the list or examples provided must be as exhaustive as possible. As shown in general research on memory and in magazine readership and television viewing studies, behaviors not mentioned in the question or mentioned only as “Other (Specify)” will be substantially underreported relative to items that are mentioned specifically. If your questions concern media, products, and organizations, lists are almost certainly available from published directories. For 58 ASKING QUESTIONS other types of behaviors, where outside lists are not available, earlier studies may provide information on the types of behaviors to include on the list. If such studies are not available, you would have to conduct a pilot study to obtain the necessary information. It is usually a mistake for a single researcher or even a group of researchers to develop a list of behaviors based only on personal experience. Personal experience is limited, and the inevitable consequence of relying on it is an incomplete and flawed listing. If the number of alternatives in a category is too great, your list may be restricted to a limited number of the most likely alternatives. Unfortunately, no estimate can then be made of the excluded behaviors. You could also include an “All Other” category in such aided-recall questions. Such a category is useful for rapport building because it gives respondents who otherwise would not have been able to respond positively an opportunity to answer. However, the data from this “All Other” category cannot be combined with the listed data. Moreover, if the list is not exhaustive, you cannot make an estimate of total behavior—although, by summing up only the listed behavior, you can make a minimum estimate. In some cases you can proceed in two stages, asking first about groups and then about specific cases. A list of all published magazines, for example, might be almost infinite in length. But you can group these into a dozen or so categories, giving examples for each category. For example, you might ask, “Do you regularly read any news magazines like Time or Newsweek? Any sports publications? Household or family magazines? Personal health and self-improvement magazines? Electronics or auto or hobby magazines?” This may be good enough if you merely want to code specific magazines into such groups anyway. But you can also ask for the names of particular magazines read within any or all categories the respondent reports reading. When a list becomes large, the order of the list may become important, especially when the respondent reads the list. Items at the top or at the bottom of a long list will be read or listened to ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 59 more carefully and will receive more positive responses than items in the middle. For long lists, careful researchers use two or more different forms and randomize the order of the items on both forms. Another procedure, shown in Figure 1.1, requires the interviewer to read all items to the respondent and obtain a “yes” or “no” answer for each item. This procedure is now widely used in telephone interviewing, where the respondent cannot be handed a card to read. It also has the advantage of removing or reducing list order effects, although both the interviewer and the respondent may become bored if the list is too long. Order effects are sensitive to the mode of administration. Because of primacy effects, items appearing early in the list are often over-selected when the questionnaire is administered in person with show cards or when it is self-administered. On the other hand, because of recency effects, items appearing at the end of the list are over-selected, particularly when the questionnaire is administered by telephone and the respondents can only hear the list read. Dealing with Long Lists. Another problem with aided recall develops from the use of long lists. Imagine respondents have been given a list of fifty activities and asked which of these they have done in a specified time period. If they have done none of these activities, the question is likely to make them uncomfortable, even if the topic is nonthreatening. They will feel that the interviewer expects at least some “yes” answers from among a long list of activities. Such respondents are likely to report some activities, either by deliberately fibbing or by unconsciously misremembering the date when a behavior occurred. You should anticipate this problem and avoid it by using two techniques. The first, illustrated in Figure 1.1, is to make the list so extensive that virtually all respondents will be able to answer “yes” to some items. The second way is to start with a screening question such as “Did you happen to have read any magazines in the past two weeks, or not?”—before showing the respondent a list of magazines. 60 ASKING QUESTIONS The long list example typifies the most serious problem with aided recall—the implicit expectation that a respondent needs to provide positive responses. If a behavior is reasonably salient and the reporting period reasonably short, aided-recall procedures may lead to substantial overreporting and should not be used, or should be used only in conjunction with other procedures that reduce overreporting. (The exceptions to this rule are the socially undesirable behaviors discussed in Chapter Three, where aided-recall methods help compensate for the general tendency of respondents to underreport.) The short screener question—“Did you happen to read any magazines in the past two weeks, or not?”—may have the opposite effect. If such a screener is used several times in the interview, respondents may learn that they can skip out of a whole series of questions by saying “no.” In general, it is better to vary question formats where possible, to make the interview more engaging for the respondent and also to decrease the chances of respondent anticipation. Make the Question Specific One simple reason for making each question as specific as possible is to make the task easier for the respondent, which, in turn, will result in more accurate reports of behavior. General questions, if they are answered conscientiously, require substantial effort by the respondent. Consider a seemingly straightforward question such as “What brand of soft drink do you usually buy?” If the question is taken seriously, the respondent must first decide on the appropriate time period, and then what conditions to include. For instance, are purchases at work, in restaurants, at sporting events, and at movies to be included? Or are only store purchases for home use to be counted? The respondent must next decide on the meaning of the word you. Does it refer only to the respondent or to all members of the household? How are purchases by one household member for ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 61 other household members to be treated? A final question to be resolved is the definition of a soft drink. Are lemonade, iced tea, fruit punch, and mineral water to be included or not? A few respondents who are highly consistent in their behavior may nearly always choose the same brand. They can answer this question with little or no difficulty. But most respondents who buy several brands will have to do some cognitive work in order to answer this question. Some will respond with the first brand name that comes to mind. That is, they will change a behavior question into one dealing with brand awareness and salience. This leads to a substantial overreporting of purchases of widely advertised brands, such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola. Only a few respondents will answer that they don’t know or ask the interviewer for more information. Thus, a small percentage of “don’t know” answers does not ensure that the question is answered accurately. As Payne (1951) points out, the researcher should behave like a newspaper reporter and ask the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and sometimes why. Whose Behavior? For behavior questions it should always be clear whether respondents are reporting only for themselves, for other household members, or for the entire household in total. The word you can be either singular or plural and is often a source of confusion. We suggest using “you, yourself” when information is wanted only from the respondent; “you or any member of this household” when the survey is attempting to determine whether any household member performed a given behavior; and “you and all other members of this household” when the survey is attempting to obtain total household behavior. Exactly the same system can be used if the interview takes place in an organizational or industrial setting. Just replace the word “household” with “company,” “firm,” or “organization,” as appropriate. What Behavior? Question 1 in Figure 2.2 illustrates a clarification of what behavior to report because it excluded all job-related activities. In a question about gasoline purchasing, you would want to 62 ASKING QUESTIONS specify whether or not purchases while on vacation or other trips should be included. Similarly, in questions about food and drink consumption, it is necessary to specify whether out-of-home consumption is to be included or excluded. When Did it Happen? The “when” question should specify the time period by using actual dates instead of terms such as “last week” or “last month.” If an interview is conducted on June 28 and the respondents are asked about last month, some will consider the time period from June 1 to June 28 as the last month, and others will consider the period from May 28. Typical wordings that can be used are “In the past two weeks, that is, since June 14 . . .” or “in the past month (or thirty days) since May 21 . . .” It is generally less precise to ask “When was the last time you did something?” Even if respondents could remember accurately, this form gives equal weight to those who do something often and those who do it rarely. Analyses and conclusions based on such data are likely to be confusing and misleading. In addition, the memory task is more difficult for those who do it rarely, so that their answers are subject to much greater memory errors. Limiting the time period means that some (possibly many) respondents will report none of the specified behavior during the time period. This will bother researchers who are attempting to maximize the amount of information they get. However, from a perspective of total survey quality, it is better to minimize the number of erroneous or potentially erroneous responses. Asking Why and When Questions. This chapter is not the place to discuss “why” questions. It is also difficult to discuss “what” questions in general terms, since the “what” questions depend on the purpose of your research. You must have a clear idea of why your study is being done before you start to write questions. Although a few researchers are able to keep the aims of their study in mind without formal procedures, most—especially beginning researchers— cannot. Before you write any questions it is a good idea to put down ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 63 on paper the aims of the study, hypotheses, table formats, and proposed analyses. These aims should not become absolute, but they should provide some useful guidelines and boundaries. Even if you are clear on what is wanted, the respondent may still be uncertain, since respondents do not have your perspective on a topic. Belson (1981) demonstrates widespread misunderstanding of survey questions and such words as usually, have, weekday, children, young people, generally, regularly, and proportion. He hypothesizes that respondents will interpret broad terms or concepts less broadly than the researcher intended. He also suggests that respondents distort questions to fit their own situations or experience. Although one cannot ensure that all respondents will understand all questions exactly as intended, the use of specific questions will help reduce respondent differences in interpretation. If general or global questions are used, they should be tested to determine what respondents think they mean. Select an Appropriate Time Period to Ask About The basic idea to consider in determining a time period is that a person’s accurate recall of a behavior is directly related to the amount of time elapsed and to the salience of the behavior (Sudman and Bradburn, 1974). The more important the event, the easier it is for the respondent to remember. Although research on saliency is limited, there appear to be three dimensions that distinguish between events that are more and less salient: (1) the unusualness of the event, (2) the economic and social costs or benefits of the event, and (3) the continuing consequences of the event. Longer Time Periods for Highly Salient Events. Events that occur rarely in one’s life—such as graduating from high school, getting married, buying a house, having a baby, or having a serious motorcycle accident or surgery—are likely to be remembered almost indefinitely. Historical events can have the same saliency. Almost anyone who was old enough can remember exactly what they were 64 ASKING QUESTIONS doing when Pearl Harbor was attacked, when President Kennedy was assassinated, or when the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001. In contrast, habitual events, such as all the things that one did at home and work, would be difficult to remember for even a day or two. In general, the greater the cost or benefit of an activity, the more one is likely to remember it. Winners of $100,000 in a state lottery will remember the details better than will the winners of $25. The purchase of a $500 microwave oven is easier to remember than the purchase of a $.69 potato peeler. Juvenile shoplifters will remember the time they were caught and forget the details of successful shoplifting efforts. Finally, some events result in continuing reminders that the event happened. The presence of a house, car, or major appliance is a reminder that the purchase was made. The presence of children is a reminder of their births. Many behavioral events are salient along two or three dimensions. Thus, buying a house is a unique event; it requires payment of a very large sum of money, and the presence of the building acts as a continuing reminder. On the other hand, the purchase of a food item is a low-cost, habitual act with no continuing consequences. Within this framework, memory about highly salient events is satisfactory for periods of a year or possibly more. Unfortunately, little work has been done on periods much longer than a year. However, for highly salient events, such as major accidents or illnesses, periods of two or three years appear to be possible. Periods of two weeks to a month seem to be appropriate for low-salience events. For behaviors of intermediate saliency, periods of one to three months are most widely used. Choosing an optimum time period does not mean that the data will be error free, but only that errors will be minimized if recall procedures are used. Longer Time Periods for Summary Information. When summary information is available, longer time periods can be used. Many respondents can give fairly reliable estimates of total medical expenditures, expenses for vacations, or income received in the past ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABOUT BEHAVIOR 65 calendar year, even if they are unable to remember the details of how or why the money was spent or obtained. The best explanation of this is that they obtained summary information for another purpose, such as tax records, or because they budgeted a specified amount of money for a vacation. If summary information is likely to be available from records and is all that is required, you should use that information instead of taking data for a much shorter time period and calculating the yearly amount. Ordinarily, however, you will be interested in both the summary data and the details of individual events. In this case, both summary questions and detailed questions for a short time period should be asked. Comparing the summary results with those obtained from extrapolating the data from the shorter period allows you to check the reliability of responses. How to Minimize Telescoping. An appropriate time period is also important if you are to minimize backward telescoping, or remembering events as happening more recently than they did. Suppose that a national sample of households are asked to report the amount of coffee they purchased in the past seven days and that this total is then compared with shipments of all coffee manufacturers or observed sales in retail outlets. These comparisons usually show that the amount reported is more than 50 percent higher than the amount manufactured and sold. What is happening is a process called telescoping. Telescoping results when the respondent remembers that the event occurred but forgets the exact date. In the past, most researchers were not concerned about telescoping because they believed that errors in the dates would be randomly distributed around the true date. However, recent research indicates that, as time passes, respondents are more uncertain about dates. As a result, respondents typically round their answers to conventional time periods, such as ten days ago, one month ago, or three months ago. The result of these two processes is to produce an overstatement of the reported events. Thus, an overstatement of coffee pur- 66 ASKING QUESTIONS chasing occurs because respondents who bought coffee two or three weeks ago are likely to report that they purchased it in the last ten days or two weeks. Telescoping Biases Increase with Short Time Periods. Unlike simple omissions, which increase with the length of the time period, telescoping biases increase as the time period between the interview and the event is reduc