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Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)
Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
Question order effects; survey research; questionnaire; Australia; survey design; emergency department; context effects
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Order Effects In Batteries Of Questions, Peter M. Siminski
Order Effects In Batteries Of Questions, Peter M. Siminski
Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)
Batteries of questions with identical response items are commonly used in survey research. This paper suggests that question order has the potential to cause systematic positive or negative bias on responses to all questions in a battery. Whilst question order effects have been studied for many decades, almost no attention has been given to this topic. The primary aim is to draw attention to this effect, to demonstrate its possible magnitude, and to discuss a range of mechanisms through which it might occur. These include satisficing, anchoring and cooperativeness. The effect seems apparent in the results of a recent survey. …