IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v26y1997i1p118-140.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Response Categories on Questionnaire Answers

Author

Listed:
  • TODD H. ROCKWOOD

    (University of Minnesota)

  • ROBERTA L. SANGSTER

    (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

  • DON A. DILLMAN

    (Washington State University)

Abstract

This article reports the effect that the ranges presented in answer categories for survey questions can have on respondent answers. Response categories were manipulated in a split-ballot survey conducted in both telephone and mail modes. These categories, presented in the separate ballots, overlapped in one category; the other categories were unique to each ballot. The experiment was conducted on four questions: two frequent and mundane and two rare and salient. It was found that the response categories significantly affected the response for frequent and mundane questions. One question demonstrated a significant difference in response between the mail and telephone modes. For this question, a response scale with a limited number of socially desirable alternatives resulted in a social desirability effect in the telephone mode. Alternatively, the telephone mode demonstrated an extremeness effect when the response scale comprised a greater number of socially desirable alternatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Todd H. Rockwood & Roberta L. Sangster & Don A. Dillman, 1997. "The Effect of Response Categories on Questionnaire Answers," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 26(1), pages 118-140, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:26:y:1997:i:1:p:118-140
    DOI: 10.1177/0049124197026001004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124197026001004
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0049124197026001004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Toepoel, V. & Das, J.W.M. & van Soest, A.H.O., 2008. "Design Effects in Web Surveys : Comparing Trained and Fresh Respondents," Other publications TiSEM 4c8b40aa-7557-4844-9474-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Stocké, Volker, 2003. "Informationsverfügbarkeit und Response-Effects : die Prognose von Einflüssen unterschiedlich kategorisierter Antwortskalen durch Antwortsicherheiten und Antwortlatenzen," Papers 03-25, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    3. Stocké, Volker, 2003. "Informationsverfügbarkeit und Response-Effects:," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 03-25, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:26:y:1997:i:1:p:118-140. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.