Abstract
Understanding how respondents answer survey questions has become a major theoretical objective in public opinion research, in large part because of the need to explain a variety of response effects that have been discovered in experiments on question form, wording, and context (see especially Schuman & Presser, 1981). Stimulated by these experiments, cognitive scientists, social psychologists, and survey researchers have begun to develop theoretical models and research programs to identify the cognitive processes underlying answers to survey questions (see, e.g., Bishop, 1987; Hippler, Schwarz, & Sudman, 1987; Krosnick & Alwin, 1987; Strack & Martin, 1987; Tourangeau & Rasinski, 1988; and Schwarz, Hippler, & Noelle-Neumann, chap. 13, this volume). Finding a way to get at these cognitive variables would be useful, since it would allow researchers to test alternative hypotheses about the psychological sources of response effects in surveys.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
In the fall 1985 interview schedule, the warm-up exercises began by asking the respondent: “First, I want you to tell me how many different people you talked to yesterday, either on the phone or in person, and tell me what you are thinking as you answer the question.” Because some respondents had difficulty with this question, we dropped it and replaced it in the 1986 and 1988 interviews with a question from Loftus’ (1984) research: “In the last 12 months, how many times have you gone to a doctor, or a dentist, or a hospital, or utilized any health care specialist or facility?” (See the Appendix for the complete set of think-aloud instructions.)
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1992 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bishop, G.F. (1992). Qualitative Analysis of Question-Order and Context Effects: The Use of Think-Aloud Responses. In: Schwarz, N., Sudman, S. (eds) Context Effects in Social and Psychological Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2848-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2848-6_11
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7695-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-2848-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive