Sensitive Questions in Online Surveys: An Experimental Evaluation of Different Implementations of the Randomized Response Technique and the Crosswise Model

Authors

  • Marc Höglinger ETH Zurich
  • Ben Jann University of Bern
  • Andreas Diekmann ETH Zurich

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2016.v10i3.6703

Keywords:

Sensitive Questions, Online Survey, Randomized Response Technique, Crosswise Model, Plagiarism

Abstract

Self-administered online surveys may provide a higher level of privacy protection to respondents than surveys administered by an interviewer. Yet, studies indicate that asking sensitive questions is problematic also in self-administered surveys. Because respondents might not be willing to reveal the truth and provide answers that are subject to social desirability bias, the validity of prevalence estimates of sensitive behaviors from online surveys can be challenged. A well-known method to overcome these problems is the Randomized Response Technique (RRT). However, convincing evidence that the RRT provides more valid estimates than direct questioning in online surveys is still lacking. We therefore conducted an experimental study in which different implementations of the RRT, including two implementations of the so-called crosswise model, were tested and compared to direct questioning. Our study is an online survey (N = 6,037) on sensitive behaviors by students such as cheating in exams and plagiarism. Results vary considerably between different implementations, indicating that practical details have a strong effect on the performance of the RRT. Among all tested implementations, including direct questioning, the unrelated-question crosswise-model RRT yielded the highest estimates of student misconduct.

Author Biographies

Marc Höglinger, ETH Zurich

Ph.D. candidate, Sociology, ETH Zürich

Ben Jann, University of Bern

Professor of Sociology at the University of Bern, Switzerland

Andreas Diekmann, ETH Zurich

Professor of Sociology at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Downloads

Published

2016-12-10

How to Cite

Höglinger, M., Jann, B., & Diekmann, A. (2016). Sensitive Questions in Online Surveys: An Experimental Evaluation of Different Implementations of the Randomized Response Technique and the Crosswise Model. Survey Research Methods, 10(3), 171–187. https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2016.v10i3.6703

Issue

Section

Articles

Most read articles by the same author(s)

Similar Articles

<< < 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.