No. 1013

Title:

(originally in Japanese)
Analysis of response effects in the item count technique via thinkaloud interviewing

Author(s):

Tsuchiya, Takahiro (The Institute of Statistical Mathematics);
Hirai, Yoko (Tokyo Metropolitan University)

Key words:

indirect questioning technique; privacy; shoplifting.

Abstract:

    The item count technique, one of the indirect questioning techniques, simply requires respondents to answer the number of items applied to them. It is a well-known response effect that the mean number of items answered to an item count question is smaller than the pseudo item count response derived from the direct questioning technique. In order to obtain stable and precise item count estimators, it is necessary to eliminate the gap. This article aims to investigate a psychological causes of the response effect via the thinkaloud interviewing. Ten respondents were requested to speak aloud what they thought in the process of answering the item count questions. The result suggests that the respondents tend to be irresponsible in answering the item count questions, and that the tendency causes the gap.