No. 1004

Title:

(originally in Japanese)
A comparative survey of the item count and direct questioning techniques via face-to-face personal interviewing

Author(s):

Tsuchiya, Takahiro (The Institute of Statistical Mathematics);
Hirai, Yoko (Tokyo Metropolitan University);
Ono, Shigeru (Synovate K.K.)

Key words:

indirect questioning technique; privacy; shoplifting.

Abstract:

    Item count technique is one of the most practical indirect questioning methods. The technique requests merely the number of items applied to keep the respondents' secret. An estimate on the target key-item is derived from the differences of mean responses between two homogeneous samples. This paper made an attempt to estimate the percentages of four key-items including shoplifting by both the item count and direct questioning techniques. The survey was conducted via the face-to-face personal interviewing. The result suggests that the item count estimates are possible to be unstable because of the context effect which disturbs the homogeneousness of two samples. This paper also illustrates that weighting adjustment is useful to yield more stable estimates.