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

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92 ASKING QUESTIONS<br />

Illegal Drug Use<br />

Illegal drug use is a major health as well as a major legal problem,<br />

and measuring trends is critical for policy purposes. It is obvious that<br />

illegal drug use is seen as a socially undesirable behavior among<br />

most segments of society. In annual studies conducted by the<br />

Research Triangle Institute (RTI) for the National Institute on<br />

Drug Abuse, self-administered procedures have been developed so<br />

that the interviewer does not know what answers were given. Figure<br />

3.7 gives excerpts from the questionnaire that indicate the<br />

information requested.<br />

<strong>The</strong> most direct method for a self-administered questionnaire<br />

would be to have respondents read the questions and answer them<br />

with no interviewer present. Unfortunately, the drug questionnaire is<br />

complex and many respondents would have trouble reading the questions<br />

and following the instructions. Initially, RTI attempted to solve<br />

this problem by having the interviewer read the questions while the<br />

respondent filled out an answer sheet. More recently they have used<br />

an audio computer-assisted self interview. With this method, which<br />

will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter, the respondent<br />

is given a laptop computer and earphones. <strong>The</strong> questions are asked<br />

by a recorded voice and the respondent enters the answers into the<br />

computer. Again it should be stressed that such self-administered<br />

methods reduce, but do not eliminate all reporting errors.<br />

It might appear that a question like number 3 in Figure 3.7 asking<br />

for number of days of lifetime use would be difficult or impossible<br />

for users to answer. One possible value for such a question<br />

pointed out by Wentland and Smith (1993) is that such a question<br />

may suggest by the answer categories that the use of marijuana is<br />

widespread, which would reduce underreporting of marijuana use.<br />

Use of Alcoholic Beverages<br />

Although many people do not find questions about their use of<br />

alcoholic beverages to be threatening, some—especially heavy

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