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

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ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS 149<br />

vate consideration of the underlying value and make respondents<br />

think more about the implications of their answers for their value<br />

consistency.<br />

Cautionary Note<br />

At the beginning of this chapter we advised the writer of attitude<br />

questions to borrow questions (with credit) that have been used in<br />

other questionnaires. We end the chapter on a note of caution.<br />

Because many questions are susceptible to order effects, you must<br />

pay considerable attention to the order in which the borrowed<br />

questions were originally used, particularly if you are interested in<br />

trend data. <strong>The</strong> use of identically worded questions in different<br />

orders may have the effect of nullifying the advantage of using the<br />

same question. Identically worded questions may not have the same<br />

meaning to respondents when they appear in different contexts.<br />

Summary<br />

Attitude questions are highly susceptible to the wording that is<br />

used, especially if the questions are not very salient to respondents.<br />

In this chapter we discussed the basic preparation that should precede<br />

the writing of new questions. Using existing questions and<br />

scales is usually desirable, although you should be alert to possible<br />

context effects when comparing results.<br />

<strong>The</strong>re are two important points about measuring behavioral<br />

intentions. First, attitude measures will not always be sensitive<br />

enough to measure behavioral intentions, particularly when all attitudes<br />

are highly favorable. Second, usage intentions can be measured<br />

through likelihood estimates or through frequency estimates,<br />

and each measure is effective under different circumstances. Frequent<br />

behaviors are most accurately measured using frequency estimates.<br />

Infrequent behaviors are most accurately measured using<br />

likelihood estimates<br />

We stressed that both you and the respondent must understand<br />

the attitude object and that you should avoid multiple concepts in

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