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

106 ASKING QUESTIONS
When some respondents are asked to give the word they would
prefer to use, they either do not know or they give an inappropriate
response. Thus, on the pretest one respondent used the word “poison”
to describe liquor. In this situation the interviewer must always
have a fallback word that he or she could type in. Typically, this is
the standard word, such as “liquor” or “sexual intercourse.”
Use Informants
In the previous chapter, we pointed out the cost efficiencies of
using household informants, but indicated that this might be at the
cost of some loss in quality of information. For threatening questions,
however, especially those dealing with socially desirable
behavior, informants may provide more reliable information than
respondents. It is, of course, necessary to ask about behavior that
the informant might know about others, either from observation
or through conversations. This could include topics such as voting,
book reading, or use of alcohol and drugs (Bradburn, Sudman, and
Associates, 1979).
The question may be asked about identifiable members in the
same household or about unidentified friends or relatives. In either
situation, respondents will not be so threatened answering questions
about the behavior of others as they would be answering
questions about their own behavior. An exception to this rule
is asking parents to report about children. Parents may be more
threatened and thus report lower levels of socially undesirable
behavior than their children, or they may just not know.
Use Diaries and Panels
In Chapter Two we discussed using diaries that provide repeated
written records for improving memory about nonsalient events.
Diaries and consumer panels also reduce the respondent’s level of
threat. First, any event becomes less threatening if it is repeated