[BLANK_AUDIO] Welcome to this segment.

This is a segment on a specific type of

attitude questions, those that have an agree-disagree scale. And they
are quite popular but they're also quite troublesome, so we
thought it might be a good idea to introduce you to some issues
related to these agree-disagree scales. Here's an example, "To what extent do you
agree or disagree with the following
statements?" "Abortion should be legal" would be the
first statement. And then, "I am certain of my views on
abortion", would be the second statement. Each of these statements can be answered
with a five point scale. The endpoints are labeled "strongly agree"
and "strongly disagree" and in between fully labeled
"agree," "neither," "disagree." Very common scale labels, very common type
of question. What is the problem here? The advantage for this format is that they
are pretty easy to administer. People are familiar with that format, they have seen
it before. In the paper by Krosnick from 2012, he
states that respondents are about two thirds the time faster to this
format than other formats, that we have few I don't know answers for
this kind of format, and that respondents actually
like these kind of scales. However, there are a few disadvantages
that we should mention here, and they have been pointed out in earlier literature,
but again summarized in the Krosnick paper
referenced here. The first one is, they are subject to
acquiescence bias. Respondents want to answer polite and in
agreeable way. In other context, acquiescence bias means
respondents are more likely to answer yes to a question. Here, respondent is on the
agreeable side. But also, respondent might defer to higher status and adopt
satisficing
strategies. So, it's all, you know, leading to more
agreeableness or "Yes, sure," "There's a statement. I probably should
agree to that." Another problem is that they often are double barreled, in the way
they
administer it. So, here's an example. "America is getting so far away from the
true American way of life that force may be necessary to
restore it." That's just, you know, a statement that
you can find in a survey and it's pretty easy to ask whether you
agree or disagree with this statement. But here you have to agree or disagree to
two different things, one has the America getting
further away from the true America And the second piece of it, people might
have a different opinion in terms of agreeing
or disagreeing. Often the disagree end can be ambiguous, so consider this item
here, "I'm seldom
depressed." So, what does disagree mean, really, for
this item? You are never depressed or are you depressed all the time, you
know? That can be on two different scale points here
and it's not clear what is, what does it mean to disagree
with any of these items. So, instead, when, you know, in
particular Krosnick argues that you can think of,
other ways to ask the same question. So, on the left hand side in this table
you see agree-disagree formats for a particular
issue, which probably should be avoided. And on the right hand side you see
construct-specific response choices
that are recommended. So, on the abortion item, "Abortion should
be legal" you can see the five point scale
again. On the right hand side the same question
is reformulated to say, "Some people think that abortion should be legal but others
think that abortion should not be
legal. Which one is closest to your opinion? Legal or illegal?" That would be one
way to ask this question to avoid some of these problems we just
talked about. "I'm certain of my views on abortion" is
paired up here in a reformulation "How certain are you of your views on
abortion? Very certain, somewhat certain, not very
certain, not certain at all." So, that too would be an alternative
formulation for the same issue. If you read through Jon Krosnick's papers
and, in particular, the one we cite here, his
verdict is never, ever, ever, under any
circumstances ask a question with agree/disagree or strongly agree to
strongly disagree scale. Let's try a few more examples listed below here. "The
staff worked together as a team to
coordinate my care." That could be a question to some patients
in the hospital. "Electrons are smaller than atoms." "Research results from
industry scientists
are less reliable than those from university
scientists." To which of those would you be able to
have an agree/disagree scale in your opinion and which one would
you prefer an alternative formulation? We've provided a sheet here for you so
that you can enter your alternative formulations for
those questions where you would prefer that. Okay, and on the next segment we'll
talk
about don't know options.