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

ASKING QUESTIONS THAT MEASURE KNOWLEDGE 181
question or said they did not know; 24 percent gave a wrong answer
to Question 2 or said they did not know.
Figure 6.2 presents the results from a series of questions asked
during the period 1988–1994 about events in World War II and
specifically about the Holocaust. The results are taken from an
article by Smith (1995). The questions are arranged in order of
decreasing knowledge, and they are from the following sources:
(1) Roper, 1992, 1994; (2) Gallup, 1991; (3) Minneapolis Star Tribune,
1988; (4) Survey Research Center, 1992; (5) Gallup, 1991;
(6 and 7) Roper, 1992, 1994; (8) CBS, 1994. It may be noted that
when given a choice among world leaders, almost 90 percent of respondents
knew who the leader of Nazi Germany was. This is a
clear illustration that knowledge questions requiring recognition
(choosing the correct answer from a series of possible answers) are
much easier than knowledge questions that used unaided recall.
Question 7, which asks about how many Jews were killed in the
Holocaust, gives the respondent six choices. The tendency for respondents
who are uncertain about an answer is to assume that something
near the middle category is correct. To neither coach nor
mislead respondents, it is better to make such a question open-ended.
Knowledge of a Public Issue
The issue of biotechnology and genetically modified foods has
reached a critical point, as it now concerns countries and firms
globally. The ongoing debate in European countries has been translated
into consumers’ concerns in opinion surveys on several occasions.
At the current time, opinion surveys indicate a good deal of
Figure 6.1. Questions About U.S. History.
1. As far as you know, what specific historical event is celebrated on July 4th?
2. As far as you know, from what country did America gain its independence
following the Revolutionary War?
Source: Crabtree, 1999.