INÉ ŠKÁLY, INÉ VÝSLEDKY? AKO OVPLYVŇUJE POUŽITÁ ŠKÁLA ODPOVEDE V DOTAZNÍKOVÝCH VÝSKUMOCH

• Authors: Bahna Miloslav , Zagrapan Jozef

Title variants

EN

Different scales, different results? How is survey responses influenced by the employed scales

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

The paper analyses the results of a series of split ballot experiments included in three representative surveys fielded in 2016 and 2017. The focus of the experiments is to compare alternative versions of various scales to test the validity of the intensity hypothesis and to compare fully labelled scales with end labelled ones in a Slovak language questionnaire. We find strong support in favour of the intensity hypothesis observing less answer to the more intensely formulated answer categories in the tested rating scales. It seems, however, that to identify the effect on a five categories agree – disagree scale reliably, a sample larger than N = 1200 is necessary. Thought relatively small, the effect becomes more notable if respondents tend to choose answers mostly towards the scale endpoints. We demonstrate how multivariate analysis results can be substantially influenced by minor scale modifications. Our experiment comparing a fully labelled scale to an end labelled scale supports the hypothesis that end labelled scales make the endpoints more salient and are more often selected by the respondents.

Keywords

EN

SPLIT BALLOT EXPERIMENT; END LABELLING; FULL LABELLING; INTENSITY HYPOTHESIS

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Sociológia (Sociology)
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 5 – 24

Contributors

author

Bahna Miloslav

• Sociologický ústav SAV, Klemensova 19, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

author

Zagrapan Jozef

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/sociologia.2019.51.1.1