To Ask or Not to Ask? It Depends on the Question

摘要

It is no secret that response rates for all types of surveys have been plummeting. There have been many useful articles concerning ways to increase response rates, but I tend to focus on the actual questions themselves. I know focus groups are supposed to ferret out concerns about wording that might lead respondents to interpret a question differently from what the survey-taker had in mind or, even more concerning, dump the survey altogether thereby adding to the nonre-sponse rate. But I just don't think enough emphasis is placed on the basic questions.