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Asking Questions - The Definitive Guide To Questionnaire Design ...

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84 ASKING QUESTIONS<br />

Figure 3.2. <strong>Questions</strong> on Library Card Ownership.<br />

1. Would you say the Chicago Public Library facilities in your neighborhood<br />

are good, fair, or poor?<br />

Good<br />

Fair<br />

Poor<br />

Don’t Know<br />

2. Does anyone in your family have a library card for the Chicago Public<br />

Library?<br />

Yes<br />

No (End Interview)<br />

3. Do you have your own Chicago Public Library Card?<br />

Yes<br />

No<br />

Source: Bradburn, Sudman, and Associates, 1979.<br />

is probably overstated. <strong>The</strong> degree of overstatement is unknown,<br />

since no outside validating information is available.<br />

As Figure 3.3 indicates, one approach (National Opinion<br />

Research Center [NORC], 1965) to inquiring about readership is to<br />

ask “Have you read any book, either hard cover or paperback,<br />

within the past six months? (If you’ve started but not finished a<br />

book, that counts too.)” A second approach (NORC, 1963) would<br />

be to ask first about magazine reading and then about book reading.<br />

<strong>The</strong> idea here is that making book reading just one of several items<br />

about reading will reduce the focus on this item and the tendency<br />

to overreport. Question 1 is longer and provides the types of memory<br />

cues discussed in Chapter Two. <strong>The</strong> results, however, showed no<br />

difference in the proportion of people who read a book in the past<br />

six months. In both versions half of all respondents reported themselves<br />

to be readers.<br />

<strong>The</strong> wording in the third approach (Gallup, 1971) does not<br />

make the question specific (as we recommended in Chapter Two,<br />

since, instead of indicating a set time period it asks “When did you

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