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A New Version of the Item Count Technique for Asking Sensitive Questions: Testing the Performance of the Person Count Technique
[journal article]
Abstract This paper presents empirical evidence on a recent advancement of the item count technique (ICT, a survey technique for asking sensitive questions), namely, the person count technique (PCT; Grant, Moon, & Gleason, 2014). PCT utilizes person lists instead of lists of filler questions, as is the case ... view more
This paper presents empirical evidence on a recent advancement of the item count technique (ICT, a survey technique for asking sensitive questions), namely, the person count technique (PCT; Grant, Moon, & Gleason, 2014). PCT utilizes person lists instead of lists of filler questions, as is the case in the classic ICT design. This simplifies the questioning procedure, but leads to some methodological challenges such as floor and ceiling effects. The main part of this paper presents empirical evidence stemming from an experimental postal survey in Germany (N = 580) investigating how well PCT performs as compared to standard direct questioning (DQ) with regard to alleviating misreporting for questions on attitudes towards refugees. PCT prevalence estimates for hostile attitudes towards refugees are significantly higher than DQ estimates for one item, and non-significantly higher for three items. Although not consistently significant, the differences are substantial, amounting to a threefold increase of the proportion of respondents expressing negative attitudes towards refugees. Even though the findings are not unequivocally in favor of PCT, this new ICT variant still deserves consideration in the future and warrants further development. Specifically, more knowledge is required with respect to its statistical properties and the best practices of its implementation.... view less
Keywords
survey research; data capture; data quality; response behavior; social desirability; questionnaire; attitude; refugee; xenophobia
Classification
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Free Keywords
sensitive questions; response bias; misreporting; item count technique; person count technique; xenophobia
Document language
English
Publication Year
2019
Page/Pages
p. 169-192
Journal
Methods, data, analyses : a journal for quantitative methods and survey methodology (mda), 13 (2019) 1
ISSN
2190-4936
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed