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

ASKING PSYCHOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS 251
tween different behaviors in various fields. All of these characteristics
have scales associated with them that can be easily adapted to
different uses.
As shown in the example that follows, questions are most often
asked as either Likert questions or semantic differential questions.
1. I consider myself to be detail-oriented.
1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9
Strongly Disagree
Strongly Agree
2. I consider myself to be . . .
1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9
Not Detail-Oriented
Detail-Oriented
Another approach is to force people to rank a set of statements
from most to least agreement in order to suppress “yea-saying.” This
ranking approach can also force discrimination among items that
might otherwise have been marked on the same scale position.
When rating measures are taken, people are usually divided into
high and low categories based on median splits or into top-third and
bottom-third splits.
Although the two questions noted in the example use 9-point
scales, 4-point scales are often seen (recall the VALS example) and
may be more appropriate for verbal and electronic formats. More
discussion of this can be found at the end of this chapter and in the
discussion of response formats in Chapter Five.
There are additional ways to ask psychographic questions. Some
researchers prefer to present two personality or AIO statements to
respondents and ask them to indicate which comes closer to their
views. Other researchers prefer to ask respondents to rank a set of
statements from most to least agreement. These alternatives can
force discrimination among items that might otherwise be marked
at the same scale position. But they are often difficult to administer
and difficult for respondents to handle.