In surveys, different results can be obtained depending the form used to ask the information to respondents. A lot is already known about the impact of some characteristics of the scales. However, little is known about others. In this note we investigate the impact of asking in different ways to select the three preferred brands out of a list. Using data from the Netquest online panel in Spain, Mexico and Colombia, we show that significant differences are obtained when the different forms are. However, ...
In surveys, different results can be obtained depending the form used to ask the information to respondents. A lot is already known about the impact of some characteristics of the scales. However, little is known about others. In this note we investigate the impact of asking in different ways to select the three preferred brands out of a list. Using data from the Netquest online panel in Spain, Mexico and Colombia, we show that significant differences are obtained when the different forms are. However, the causes of these differences are not clear. It is also hard to say that one of the forms performs better than the others: i.e. provides results closer to the reality. But researchers should be aware that even small changes in the form of asking for information can have big impact on the results. More time and efforts should therefore be dedicated to the questionnaires design.
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