Test #3 (chapter 8) Flashcards
Explain the context that questionnaire items on a survey occur in
- the questionnaire items are carefully constructed measures of a variable
- the variable is a carefully considered reflection of a concept a researcher has in mind
Survey questions are part of the _______ _______ definition process of trying to measure an _________ ________
larger operational
abstract concept
What is the Likert scale?
It is a rating scale used to measure opinions, attitudes, or behaviours –> it consists of a statement or a question, followed by a series of answer statements (rank them)
- Respondents are asked to strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree, etc.
**ordinal variable
What are the 9 guidelines for asking questions?
- Choose Appropriate Question Forms
- Make Items Clear
- Avoid Double-Barrelled Questions
- Respondents must be competent to answer
- Respondents must be willing to answer
- very personal questions can be tricky - Questions should be relevant
- Short items are best
- assume respondents will read items quickly and give quick answers - Avoid Negative Items
- Avoid Biased Items and Terms
What are some different kinds of question forms you can choose from?
- can choose a question or a statement –> summarize the attitude in a brief statement and ask the respondents whether they agree or disagree
Open-ended questions:
- respondents provide their own answers
- can categorize the data later
(raises possibility that the interpretation will be misunderstood or maybe the answer will be irrelevant to the researcher’s intent)
Closed-ended questions:
- respondent select an answer from a list provided by the researcher –> response categories need to be both exhaustive and mutually exclusive (popular in survey research bc they provide a greater uniformity of responses and are more easily processed)
–> if you have too many options in a category, mutual exclusivity can be a problem - can lead to survey error (helpful to add “select best answer” or something like that)
–> can get around exhaustiveness by adding “other” option
What is a double-barrelled question?
When you’re actually asking two separate questions in one –> usually uses the words “or” or “and”
ex. should the government spend more on healthcare and less on the military?
Explain the idea of competency being needed in your respondents
Respondents should have some sort of knowledge base on the topic being asked
- people are afraid to admit what they don’t know - might just give an answer even though they have no idea what they’re talking about (ex. MAGA video)
- or they’ll lie to be polite
What is questionnaire bias?
What are loaded or leading questions?
A form of systematic error that occurs when properties of questions/statements encourage responses in a particular direction
Leading or loaded questions are questions that contain bias
LEADING –> lead ppl to answer a question in a specific way based on how the question is phrased
LOADED –> trick question that pushes you towards a particular response and assumes something about the respondent in the question
What are 3 general rules for questionnaire format?
- it should be spread out and uncluttered
- putting more than one question on a line will cause some respondents to miss the second question
- squeezed-together questionnaires are disastrous
What are contingency questions? 2 format options for them?
A survey question intended for only some respondents, determined by their responses to some other question. For example, all respondents might be asked whether they watch sports on TV, and only those who said yes would be asked which sports they watch, and
- offer a structure for exploring subject areas logically in some depth
format : following question(s) in a pop-out box with arrow pointing to it OR include instructions for skipping questions (and an instruction at the top of each page containing only the contingency questions)
What are matrix questions? Advantages of matrix questions? Disadvantages?
It’s an efficient format for presenting close-ended questionnaire items with the same response categories
- when several questions have the same set of answer categories
Advantages:
- may increase the comparability of questions
- better use of space and faster for someone to complete
Disadvantages:
- may encourage you to structure an item so that the responses fit into the matrix format when rly a more idiosyncratic set of responses would work better
- respondents might go through it too quickly and misread some
What are some guidelines to consider for the ordering of items in a questionnaire
- be sensitive to the problem - try to estimate the effect of item order when interpreting results
- demographic questions should normally go at the end of a survey
Desired ordering of items differs between self-administered questionnaires and interviews:
- best to begin the questionnaire with the most interesting set of items
- interviews should start with easy / non-threatening items to establish rapport
**don’t ask extremely personal or sensitive questions right at the start (ex. what’s your income, what do you think about abortion, etc.)
Questionnaire Instructions?
Begin every self-administered questionnaire with basic instructions
- introduce subsections with a content and purpose statement
What are the 3 main methods of administering survey questionnaires?
- Self-administered questionnaires –> generally completed online
- Administered by interviewers in face-to-face encounters
- conducted by telephone
*mail surveys only sometimes still used where a group of respondents are gathered at the same place at the same time
You should try to keep online surveys under ___ minutes
20
First published papers on Web surveys appeared in ____
1996
Online surveys are especially popular in _____ ______
market research
________________ is used by professional researchers across North America
SurveyGizmo
