An ounce of prevention: using conversational interviewing and avoiding agreement response scales to prevent acquiescence

Rachel E. Davis (), Frederick G. Conrad (), Shaohua Dong (), Anna Mesa (), Sunghee Lee () and Timothy P. Johnson ()
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Rachel E. Davis: University of South Carolina
Frederick G. Conrad: University of Michigan
Shaohua Dong: University of Michigan
Anna Mesa: University of South Carolina
Sunghee Lee: University of Michigan
Timothy P. Johnson: University of Illinois at Chicago

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2024, vol. 58, issue 1, No 23, 495 pages

Abstract: Abstract Acquiescent response style (ARS), the tendency for survey respondents to agree with survey items, is of particular concern for increasing measurement error in surveys with populations who are more likely to acquiesce, such as Latino respondents in the U.S. In order to develop methods for reducing ARS, this study addressed two questions: (1) Does administering a questionnaire using conversational interviewing (CI) yield less ARS than standardized interviewing (SI)? (2) Do bipolar disagree/agree (DA) response scales lead to higher ARS than unipolar response scales that do not assess agreement (non-AG)? A total of 891 Latino telephone survey respondents were screened for ARS and randomly assigned to four experimental groups determined by crossing interviewing technique (CI or SI) and response format (non-AG or DA): (1) SI/non-AG (n = 301); (2) SI/DA (n = 295); (3) CI/non-AG (n = 149); and (4) CI/DA (n = 146). CI yielded lower ARS than SI (p

Keywords: Surveys; Interviewing; Acquiescence; Conversational interviewing; Response styles; Survey error; Latino (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s11135-023-01650-7

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