Elaborate Item Count Questioning: Why Do People Underreport in Item Count Responses?

The item count technique, used often to investigate illegal or socially undesirable behaviours, requires respondents to indicate merely the number of applicable items from among a list. However, the number of applicable items indicated via the item count question tends to be smaller than when it is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Survey Research Methods Vol. 4; no. 3; pp. 139 - 149
Main Authors: Tsuchiya, Takahiro, Hirai, Yoko
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: European Survey Research Association 2010
Subjects:
Allgemeines, spezielle Theorien und Schulen, Methoden, Entwicklung und Geschichte der Psychologie
anonymity
Anonymität
Antwortverhalten
Basic Research, General Concepts and History of Psychology
Befragung
check-all-that-apply
comparison
consistency
empirical social research
empirische Sozialforschung
Erhebungstechniken und Analysetechniken der Sozialwissenschaften
error
Fehler
Fragebogen
group
Gruppe
H1-99
indirect questioning technique
indirect questioning technique; item count technique; underreporting effect; order effect; check-all-that-apply
item count technique
Konsistenz
measurement
measurement instrument
Messinstrument
Messung
Methodenforschung
methodological research
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
order effect
Psychologie
Psychology
questionnaire
response behavior
Social sciences (General)
Social sciences, sociology, anthropology
Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie
survey
underreporting effect
Vergleich
ISSN:1864-3361, 1864-3361
Online Access:Get full text
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Description
Summary:The item count technique, used often to investigate illegal or socially undesirable behaviours, requires respondents to indicate merely the number of applicable items from among a list. However, the number of applicable items indicated via the item count question tends to be smaller than when it is calculated from the direct `applies/does not apply' responses to each item. Because this inconsistency, which we refer to as the underreporting effect, often disturbs proper item count estimates, the causes of this effect are explored in this paper. Web survey results revealed that the order of the response alternatives is irrelevant to the underreporting effect, and that the underreporting effect is caused by the response format in which the item count question requests merely the number of applicable items and not the number of non-applicable items. It is also shown that the magnitude of the underreporting effect decreases when the respondents are asked to indicate the numbers of both applicable and non-applicable items, which we refer to as elaborate item count questioning.
ISSN:1864-3361
1864-3361
DOI:10.18148/srm/2010.v4i3.4620