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

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118 ASKING QUESTIONS<br />

Checklist of Major Points<br />

1. Make sure the attitudes you are measuring are clearly specified.<br />

2. Decide on the critical aspects of the attitude to be measured,<br />

such as cognitive, evaluative, and behavioral components.<br />

Do not assume that these components must be consistent.<br />

3. Measure the strength of the attitude by building a strength<br />

dimension into the question itself. Either ask separate questions<br />

about attitude strength or ask a series of independent<br />

questions, each of which reflects the general attitude.<br />

4. Measure behavioral intentions either directly or by asking<br />

about the likelihood a respondent will engage in a behavior.<br />

For infrequent behaviors, likelihood measures are best; for<br />

frequent behaviors, direct measures are better.<br />

5. Avoid double-barreled and one-and-a-half-barreled questions<br />

that introduce multiple concepts and do not have a single<br />

answer.<br />

6. Whenever possible, separate the issues from the individuals<br />

or from the sources connected with the issues.<br />

7. Consider using separate unipolar items if bipolar items might<br />

miss independent dimensions.<br />

8. Recognize that the presence or absence of an explicitly stated<br />

alternative can have dramatic effects on response.<br />

9. Specify alternatives to help standardize the question.<br />

10. Pretest new attitude questions to determine how respondents<br />

are interpreting them. Using split ballots in pretests is highly<br />

desirable.<br />

11. Ask the general question first if general and specific attitude<br />

questions are related.<br />

12. Ask the least popular item last when asking questions of differing<br />

degrees of popularity involving the same underlying value.

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