Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context

by Howard W. Schuman, Stanley Presser

Overview

Comprehensive in its coverage, Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys covers such issues as question order and response order effects; the lack of overlap between respondent-generated categories for open-ended questions and the closed categories generated by research, even with extensive pre-testing with open questions; the effects of explicitly offering respondents a "don't know" or a middle opinion alternative; attitude strength and its relation to reliability; and issues of wording tone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761903598
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	03/01/1996
Series:	Quantitative Studies in Social Relation
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Stanley Presser is interested in the interface between social psychology and survey measurement. His research focuses on questionnaire design and testing, the accuracy of survey responses, nonresponse, and ethical issues stemming from the use of human subjects. His books include Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys (with Howard Schuman), Survey Questions (with Jean Converse), and Survey Research Methods (with Eleanor Singer).

In addition to being professor of sociology, he teaches in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, which he founded in 1992 with colleagues at the University of Michigan and Westat, Inc. He has served as editor of Public Opinion Quarterly, was president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, and is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association. Presser was director of the Maryland Survey Research Center from 1989 to 2000.

Table of Contents

Scope and Method
Question Order and Response Order
Open versus Closed Questions
The Assessment of No Opinion
The Fine Line between Attitudes and Nonattitudes
Measuring a Middle Position
Balance and Imbalance in Questions
The Acquiescence Quagmire
Passionate Attitudes
Intensity, Centrality, and Committed Action
Attitude Strength and the Concept of Crystallization
Tone of Wording
Some Final Thoughts on Survey Research and Research on Surveys
Appendix A: Mysteries of Replication and Non-Replication
Appendix B: Special Sampling and Interviewing Problems
Appendix C: Education and Information Measures
Appendix D: Additional Items and Codes Bearing on Acquiescence

Editorial Reviews

"The book is virtually a treasure chest for the survey methodologist and the survey practitioner."

Journal of Official Statistics