The Impact of Parenthetical Phrases on Interviewers’ and Respondents’ Processing of Survey Questions
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Publication Title
Survey Practice
Volume
9
Issue
2
Pages
1-10
Publisher Name
American Association for Public Opinion Research
Abstract
Many surveys contain sets of questions (e.g., batteries), in which the same phrase, such as a reference period or a set of response categories, applies across the set. When formatting questions for interviewer administration, question writers often enclose these repeated phrases in parentheses to signal that interviewers have the option of reading the phrase. Little research, however, examines what impact this practice has on data quality. We explore whether the presence and use of parenthetical statements is associated with indicators of processing problems for both interviewers and respondents, including the interviewer’s ability to read the question exactly as worded, and the respondent’s ability to answer the question without displaying problems answering (e.g., expressing uncertainty). Data are from questions about physical and mental health from 355 digitally recorded, transcribed, and interaction-coded telephone interviews. We implement a mixed-effects model with crossed random effects and nested and crossed fixed effects. The models also control for some respondent and interviewer characteristics. Findings indicate respondents are less likely to exhibit a problem when parentheticals are read, but reading the parentheticals increase the odds(marginally significant) that interviewers will make a reading
error.
Identifier
2168-0094
Recommended Citation
Dykema, Jennifer; Schaeffer, Nora Cate; Garbarski, Dana; Nordheim, Erik V.; Banghart, Mark; and Cyffka, Kristen. The Impact of Parenthetical Phrases on Interviewers’ and Respondents’ Processing of Survey Questions. Survey Practice, 9, 2: 1-10, 2016. Retrieved from Loyola eCommons, Sociology: Faculty Publications and Other Works,
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
Author Posting © Dykema J., N. C. Schaeffer, D. Garbarski, E. V. Nordheim, M. Banghart and K. Cyffka. 2016.
Comments
Author Posting © Dykema J., N. C. Schaeffer, D. Garbarski, E. V. Nordheim, M. Banghart and K. Cyffka. 2016. This article is posted here by permission of the American Association for Public Opinion Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Survey Practice, Vol. 9, Iss. 2, 2016, http://www.surveypractice.org/index.php/SurveyPractice/issue/view/70