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

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138 ASKING QUESTIONS Accounting for Multidimensional Attitudes Some attitudes are about objects that are multidimensional, and it is difficult to understand the attitude without taking other alternatives into consideration. Tax policy might be such a case. By focusing on a single aspect of tax policy, such as a flat rate, the question might in fact bias the measurement because opinions about the flat rate might depend on what it is compared to. Research indicates that you can get quite different readings on opinion about many subjects when the questions pose different comparisons. In such cases you need to ask the question in such a way that respondents must choose between two alternatives. A good example of this is in the bipolar example above in which respondents were asked whether they favor the graduated income tax or a flat tax. Given the extreme sensitivity of opinion questions to the formulation of alternatives, you must give careful consideration to the wording of the alternatives that are offered. Which alternatives are chosen, of course, depends entirely on the research question being investigated. Alternatives provide the frame of reference that the respondents use in expressing their opinions. You will want to be sure that respondents use the same frame of reference you are using. To ensure that the frame of reference is the same, you should do a considerable amount of pretesting and examine different ways to phrase alternatives. Pretest respondents should be asked to indicate what they understood the alternatives to mean in order to provide evidence that they are indeed interpreting the questions in the way you intended. If at all possible, a sufficiently large pretest should be done with split ballots, so that the effects of the stated alternatives can be empirically investigated. If large effects are found between different alternatives, you should continue investigations until you understand what is producing the effect. Sometimes what looks like a clear unidimensional concept turns out to be multidimensional. A dramatic effect of using unipolar items was found when developing a scale to measure psychological well-being (Bradburn, 1969). Instead of a series of bipolar
ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS 139 items in which respondents reported themselves as either “excited” or “bored,” “cheerful” or “depressed,” “happy” or “unhappy,” and so on, questions were phrased in a unipolar manner. Respondents were asked in separate questions whether they had felt, for example, “on top of the world” or “depressed” during the past few weeks. Respondents answered each question “yes” or “no.” A surprising finding was that, although responses to the positively worded questions correlated with one another, and the negatively worded items correlated with one another, responses to the positive items had a zero relationship to responses to the negative items. Thus the concept of psychological well-being turned out to be multidimensional. Although unipolar items will often produce results similar to those found with bipolar items, bipolar items make it difficult to discover interesting independence of dimensions. Using Question Filters Questions about complex attitudes sometimes need to be broken down into a series of simpler unipolar questions. The particular questions to be asked may be contingent on answers to previous questions. This technique is called filtering or branching. It is a useful technique to decompose complex attitudes so that you do not have to use difficult multidimensional questions that require a number of qualifying clauses. A good example of the use of filters come from an adaptation of a question about the first Gulf War, shown in Figure 4.4. The question was designed to be asked about three months before the start of the war to measure public opinion about support of a war with Iraq. Note that there is a question that is asked of respondents who gave a response to the previous question that needed elaboration in order to get at the various conditions and dates that were being discussed as policy options at the time. Sometimes the use of filters produces some surprising results. For instance, the use of filters with this question gives a different view of public opinion than would be obtained if you only used the first
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Asking Questions The Definitive Gui
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Norman M. Bradburn Seymour Sudman B
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Copyright © 2004 by John Wiley & S
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viii CONTENTS 12. Asking Questions
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Preface This book is a revised and
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PREFACE xiii trate some of the subt
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The Authors Norman M. Bradburn (Ph.
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Asking Questions
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Chapter One The Social Context of Q
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THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF QUESTION ASKI
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Chapter Two Asking Nonthreatening Q
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ASKING NONTHREATENING QUESTIONS ABO
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Figure 2.4. Household Health Diary.
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Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census,
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80 ASKING QUESTIONS e. The Sealed B
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82 ASKING QUESTIONS asking about te
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84 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 3.2. Que
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86 ASKING QUESTIONS into a car, mig
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188 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 6.6. Qu
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190 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 6.8. Qu
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192 ASKING QUESTIONS Resident Infor
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194 ASKING QUESTIONS It must be rec
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196 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 6.10. Q
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198 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 6.11. S
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200 ASKING QUESTIONS Figure 6.11. S
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202 ASKING QUESTIONS question indic
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204 ASKING QUESTIONS state or count
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206 ASKING QUESTIONS respondents wi
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208 ASKING QUESTIONS answers, most
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210 ASKING QUESTIONS on the Web sin
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Chapter Seven Asking Questions that
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ASKING QUESTIONS THAT EVALUATE PERF
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• Depends heavily on employee’s
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244 ASKING QUESTIONS make a particu
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246 ASKING QUESTIONS on demographic
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248 ASKING QUESTIONS Table 8.1. Eig
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250 ASKING QUESTIONS domain and rel
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252 ASKING QUESTIONS Seven Steps to
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254 ASKING QUESTIONS the frequency
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256 ASKING QUESTIONS The fourth ste
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258 ASKING QUESTIONS empty cells. I
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Chapter Nine Asking Standard Demogr
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ASKING STANDARD DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIO
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Chapter Ten Organizing and Designin
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ORGANIZING AND DESIGNING QUESTIONNA
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Fill- Ins Easily done with a Possib
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Chapter Eleven Questionnaires from
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QUESTIONNAIRES FROM START TO FINISH
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Chapter Twelve Asking Questions FAQ
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ASKING QUESTIONS FAQS 325 tain you
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Do you own an IBM-type of PC? Yes
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ASKING QUESTIONS FAQS 329 Ranking q
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ASKING QUESTIONS FAQS 331 guish bet
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ASKING QUESTIONS FAQS 333 activitie
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336 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RECOMMENDED RE
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348 GLOSSARY object. The term belie
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350 GLOSSARY are entered directly i
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352 GLOSSARY the sex of the respond
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354 GLOSSARY of an IBM card is a on
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356 GLOSSARY individual difference
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358 GLOSSARY overreporting, underre
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360 GLOSSARY because of illness or
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362 GLOSSARY response effect A gene
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364 GLOSSARY questionnaires list th
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Index A Ability, measuring, 197-202
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INDEX 369 Denver, 86; Community che
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INDEX 371 Library card ownership, 8
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INDEX 373 preferences, 167-168; thr
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Appendix A List of Academic and Not
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APPENDIX A 377 Phoenix, AZ 85003-17
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APPENDIX A 379 Fax: 310-206-4453 E-
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APPENDIX A 381 800 Florida Ave., N.
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APPENDIX A 383 E-mail: jbason@arche
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APPENDIX A 385 Phone: 312-996-5300
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APPENDIX A 387 Phone: 785-532-5510
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APPENDIX A 389 Center for the Study
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APPENDIX A 391 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-
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APPENDIX A 393 731 Oldfather Hall L
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APPENDIX A 395 New York Marist Coll
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APPENDIX A 397 Cornell University I
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APPENDIX A 399 225 South Main St. A
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APPENDIX A 401 121 University Pl. P
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APPENDIX A 403 South Dakota Busines
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APPENDIX A 405 Public Policy Resear
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APPENDIX A 407 E-mail: sesrc@wsu.ed
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APPENDIX A 409 England National Cen
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412 APPENDIX B PLEASE CIRCLE ONE CO
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414 APPENDIX B 14. Who purchased th
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416 APPENDIX B 23. What racial/ethn
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Faculty Retention Survey December 2
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2. Professional Life Important to y
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4. Environment Important to you Imp
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Appendix D Kinko’s: Open-ended Se
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