In this paper, we investigate the context stability of questions on political issues in cross-national surveys. For this purpose, we conducted three replication studies (N1 = 213; N2 = 677; N3 = 1,489) based on eight split-ballot design experiments with undergraduate and graduate students to test for question order effects. The questions, which were taken from the Eurobarometer (2013), included questions on perceived performance and identification. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups which received the questions either in the original or the reversed order. In all three studies, respondents answered the questions about Germany and the European Union/Europe differently depending on whether the question was asked first or second in the question sequence. Specifically, when answering a subsequent question in a question sequence, the preceding question seems to have functioned as a standard of comparison. Our empirical findings also suggest that the likelihood of the occurrence of such context effects can be reduced by implementing informed questionnaire design strategies.
%0 Journal Article
%1 silber2016question
%A Silber, Henning
%A Höhne, Jan Karem
%A Schlosser, Stephan
%D 2016
%J Survey Methods: Insights from the Field
%K 2016 EB_input2016 Eurobarometer FDZ_IUP article checked context_effects cross-national_surveys english indexproved input2016 noindex questionnaire_design_experiments review_proved reviewed
%R 10.13094/SMIF-2016-00006
%T Question Order Experiments in the German-European Context
%U http://surveyinsights.org/?p=7645
%X In this paper, we investigate the context stability of questions on political issues in cross-national surveys. For this purpose, we conducted three replication studies (N1 = 213; N2 = 677; N3 = 1,489) based on eight split-ballot design experiments with undergraduate and graduate students to test for question order effects. The questions, which were taken from the Eurobarometer (2013), included questions on perceived performance and identification. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups which received the questions either in the original or the reversed order. In all three studies, respondents answered the questions about Germany and the European Union/Europe differently depending on whether the question was asked first or second in the question sequence. Specifically, when answering a subsequent question in a question sequence, the preceding question seems to have functioned as a standard of comparison. Our empirical findings also suggest that the likelihood of the occurrence of such context effects can be reduced by implementing informed questionnaire design strategies.
@article{silber2016question,
abstract = {In this paper, we investigate the context stability of questions on political issues in cross-national surveys. For this purpose, we conducted three replication studies (N1 = 213; N2 = 677; N3 = 1,489) based on eight split-ballot design experiments with undergraduate and graduate students to test for question order effects. The questions, which were taken from the Eurobarometer (2013), included questions on perceived performance and identification. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups which received the questions either in the original or the reversed order. In all three studies, respondents answered the questions about Germany and the European Union/Europe differently depending on whether the question was asked first or second in the question sequence. Specifically, when answering a subsequent question in a question sequence, the preceding question seems to have functioned as a standard of comparison. Our empirical findings also suggest that the likelihood of the occurrence of such context effects can be reduced by implementing informed questionnaire design strategies.},
added-at = {2019-03-20T18:49:19.000+0100},
author = {Silber, Henning and Höhne, Jan Karem and Schlosser, Stephan},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/24dbeea2c983bc6213b6a9411321c7239/gesis_dump},
doi = {10.13094/SMIF-2016-00006},
interhash = {fc1d0a5c619c9d8ca8f54c061ae19337},
intrahash = {4dbeea2c983bc6213b6a9411321c7239},
journal = {Survey Methods: Insights from the Field},
keywords = {2016 EB_input2016 Eurobarometer FDZ_IUP article checked context_effects cross-national_surveys english indexproved input2016 noindex questionnaire_design_experiments review_proved reviewed},
month = {November},
note = {http://dx.doi.org/10.13094/SMIF-2016-00006. (Eurobarometer)},
study = {Eurobarometer 2013},
tagadata-svko-dda-test = {11115},
tagadata-svkoddatest2 = {11108},
timestamp = {2019-10-01T13:01:51.000+0200},
title = {Question Order Experiments in the German-European Context},
url = {http://surveyinsights.org/?p=7645},
year = 2016
}