Investigating Response Patterns Across Surveys

Do Respondents Show Consistency in Undesirable Answer Behaviour over Multiple Surveys

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12102829
AutoresFrank Bais (Utrecht University, autor de correspondencia), Barry Schouten (0000-0002-6176-7171, Statistics Netherlands, The Hague, Netherlands), Vera Toepoel (0000-0001-7315-6311, Utrecht University)
Año2020
Volumen147-148
Número1-2
Páginas150-168
Fecha de publicación2020-08-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0759-1063 • E-ISSN: 2070-2779
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0759106320939891
OpenAlexW3080213414
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas24

The relation between answer behaviour and measurement error has been studied extensively. Answer behaviour may be considered undesirable, like answering ‘don’t know’ or ‘won’t tell’. It is not clear to what degree undesirable answer behaviour from the same respondents is present across different surveys. In this study, we investigated to what extent respondents show undesirable answer behaviours consistently over multiple surveys. First, we investigated to what extent the answer behaviours occurred in ten large general population surveys of CentERdata and Statistics Netherlands. Second, we explored the respondent variances and respondent-survey interaction variances to obtain an indication for respondent consistency for each answer behaviour. The results showed that respondents only occasionally give ‘don’t know’– and ‘won’t tell’-answers. An indication for respondent consistency was found for fast responding, slow responding, and ‘won’t tell’-answers in particular. We recommend follow-up research to investigate the relation between respondent characteristics and consistent answer behaviour

Consistency (knowledge bases · Data mining · Population · Population mean · Relation (database · Respondent · Sociology · Statistics · Computer Science · Demography · Expert finding and Q&A systems · Mathematics · Mobile Crowdsensing and Crowdsourcing · Psychology · Social Psychology · Survey Methodology and Nonresponse