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Do Open-Ended Questions Measure "Salient" Issues?
| Title: | Do Open-Ended Questions Measure "Salient" Issues? |
| Author: | Geer, John Gray |
| Abstract: | Closed-ended questions dominate most interview schedules. Yet the almost exclusive use of this form did not arise because open-ended questions, its major competitor, proved to be weak indicators of public opinion. Instead, responses from open-ended questions proved more difficult and expensive to code and analyze than those from closed-ended questions. Although such practical concerns are important, the real task of survey researchers is to measure public opinion accurately. Using an experimental design, this article tests whether open-ended questions measure the important concerns of respondents' one of the long-claimed advantages of this format. The results, on balance, show that open-ended comments reflect such concerns, suggesting that pollsters may want to include more of these questions in their surveys of public opinion. |
| Description: | Originally published in Public Opinion Quarterly, v. 55, no. 3 (p. 360-370). |
| Subject: |
Salient issues
Open-ended questions |
| LCSH Subject: |
Public opinion polls -- Methodology
Public opinion -- United States United States -- Politics and government -- Public opinion |
| URI: |
http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol55/issue3/index.dtl
http://hdl.handle.net/1803/4052 |
| Date: | 1991 |
Files in this item
| Files | Size | Format | View |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do Open-ended Questions Measure 'Salient' Issues.pdf | 1.184Mb |
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