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Open-ended questions are an important methodological tool for social science researchers, but they suffer from large variations in response quality. In this contribution, we discuss the state of research and develop a systematic approach to the mechanisms of quality generation in open-ended questions, examining the effects from respondents and interviewers as well as those arising from their interactions. Using data from an open-ended question on associations with foreigners living in Germany from the ALLBUS 2016, we first apply a two-level negative binomial regression to model influences on response quality on the interviewer and respondent level and their interaction. In a second regression analysis, we assess how qualitative variation (information entropy) in responses on the interviewer level is related to interviewer characteristics and data quality. We find that respondents' education, age, gender, motivation and topic interest influence response quality. The interviewer-related variance in response length is 36%. Whereas interviewer characteristics (age, gender, education, experience) do not have a direct effect, they impact on response quality due to interactions between interviewer and respondent characteristics. Notably, an interviewer's experience has a positive effect on response quality only in interaction with highly educated respondents.

"EvalAnswer is a tool for automatically detecting different types of nonresponse in answers to openended questions. It was specifically developed for use in web probing procedures but it can be used in any online survey that asks open-ended questions. EvalAnswer automatically detects and codes cases of nonresponse and suggests follow-up questions which are tailored to reduce nonresponse. Once implemented in a survey, researchers have a powerful survey aid that helps to automatically increase data quality during the interview process by eliciting better answers to open-ended questions. Furthermore, the tool can be used in the post-processing of answers after data collection. The tool can be adapted to be used in one's own survey. This paper describes the survey methodology that led to developing the tool and it gives details on its validity and effectiveness." (author's abstract)

The Socratic method was the major pedagogic tool at the first great Western university, Plato's Academy, and continues to be respected, at least in theory, by teachers at our institutions of higher learning. Yet today many of Plato's heirs in the university community seem to hold several perhaps innocent but nonetheless serious misconceptions concerning the Socratic technique. As a political scientist interested in the history of political philosophy, I have developed some thoughts on this subject in response to repeated inquiries by colleagues and students alike.One popular inaccuracy describes the Socratic method as an openended question and answer process. Actually, the Socratic approach has a singular purpose, namely the search for truth, and it is this explicit goal rather than an informal procedure of give and take which distinguishes the Socratic method from other teaching techniques.

Given increasing evidence from international surveys that concern for the environment appears to be a worldwide phenomenon, the authors of this article were interested in conducting an in-depth analysis of environmental concerns, values and behavior in the Beijing and Detroit metropolitan areas. Because of the attention that has been given to the influences of dominant social values and neighborhood environmental context on environmental attitudes cross-nationally, the authors were especially interested in examining what impact these have. In so doing, they attempted to introduce several important innovations in their comparative study, including new measures of commitment to the Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) and indicators of neighborhood environmental quality. Using face-to-face interviews with probability samples surveys of residents in the Beijing and Detroit metropolitan areas, the study also determined, from openended questions, people's understandings of 'the environment' and 'economic growth' and the priority trade-offs between them that are often implied and debated. The analyses found striking similarities as well as differences in the two metropolitan areas.

Communication related to climate change as well as to its consequences constitutes a major challenge; all the more so since climate is a nonobservable phenomenon, in stark contrast to the weather. In this perspective, language plays a crucial role in the conceptualisation and the framing of climate change discourse. In this paper, French and Norwegian data stemming from representative surveys in the two countries are compared. The participants are asked to answer an openended question concerning their conceptions of the expression "climate change". The French data are collected from a survey undertaken in 2016 by ELIPSS at the Sciences Po (Institut d'études politiques de Paris). The Norwegian data are generated from a survey undertaken in 2013 by the Norwegian Citizen Panel/DIGSSCORE, at the University of Bergen. The answers are first analysed through a semi-automated structural topic modeling (STM) and then assessed through an in-depth manual evaluation. Further linguistic and enunciative analyses are undertaken of a selection of the respondents' answer provided by the surveys. Given the difference in the energy mix of the two countries, different associations are expected to appear from the French and the Norwegian participants. At the same time, with the common global dimension of climate change, it seems reasonable to expect some similar associations concerning the reality of the changes, the consequences and the measures of adaptation or mitigation proposed or undertaken by the two countries. These issues are discussed within the theoretical frame of enunciation, including perspectives related to concession in a polyphonic perspective and to deontic modality. ; publishedVersion

Left-right self-placement on a unidimensional scale is a standard question in many social and political surveys to measure respondents' ideological orientation in a minimalist way.Although the left-right scale is a standard question, the scale design is not standardized across surveys. One aspect of scale design is the offer of a midpoint. This paper is about design effects on central left-right scale placement in a cross-national context. How do respondents answer if there is no true midpoint: Do respondents who want to express a middle position, in the case of a 10-point scale, use scale middle categories as a substitute for a true midpoint? Are findings consistent across countries? Offering a midpoint is much debated among researchers and quite often, a midpoint might serve as a hidden "don't know" or a missing attitude. Does nonresponse increase when non-attitudes cannot be expressed by choosing the neutral midpoint to hide nonresponse? If middle categories in the 10-point scale work as substitute for a true midpoint in the 11-point scale, nonresponse will not differ. We tested these questions in a split-half experiment where either a 10-point or an 11-point scale was asked in an experimental web survey fielded in six countries. Our results seem to confirm the idea that respondents who favor choosing a scale middle find a virtual center in the 10-point scale. However, results are inconsistent in cross-national perspective.

This study examines how the reproductive intentions of Russians changed during the socio-economic shocks in 2022—2023 basing on the data from a representative survey of respondents of reproductive age conducted in May 2023. We used multiple-choice models to identify the factors that influenced changes in fertility decisions. Most individuals who had planned to have children before the crisis did not change their plans (60.2%), 9.5% of respondents decided not to have children, while, on the contrary, 9.2% decided to have children earlier. The rest of the respondents postponed having children. The econometric model included both objective and subjective characteristics of respondents. Objective factors included income, housing availability, health, family status, and the presence of children. Subjective factors comprised emotions such as anxiety, fear, appeasement, happiness, and attitude to the political course of the country. The study found that psychological factors played a more significant role in decision-making. Anxiety and fear as well as disagreement with the country's political course led respondents to postpone having children for an indefinite period. Conversely, a positive emotional background and the presence of a partner encouraged respondents to have children earlier. The decision not to have children was mainly explained by physiological limitations and attitudes to political course, while the income and emotional indicators had a more minor but significant influence. The results of model estimates are consistent with the cluster analysis of answers to the openended question about changes in reproductive intentions. We also discovered significant differences in decision-making for respondents before and after the age of 30 as well as for those with and without children. A series of demographic and social policy recommendations are suggested.

Several definitions of majority and minority groups can be found in the social psychological literature. They involve numeric size, power/status, and counternormative position, but size is most commonly used in experimental research to manipulate minority/minority status. Does this practice mirror real-world conceptualizations? To address this question, 77 participants were asked to describe majority and minority groups using a structured openended measure. Content analysis of their responses revealed that majority and minority groups were conceptualized along eight dimensions, which included power, number, distinctiveness, social category, group context, dispositions, and being the source or target of behavior. Although these dimensions were relevant to both majorities and minorities, they often were applied differentially. Also, minorities were associated with more divergent thinking and viewed more negatively than were majorities. On the basis of these findings, a new typology of groups was proposed that could be used in future experimental research to advance our understanding of majorities and minorities.

Several definitions of majority and minority groups can be found in the social psychological literature. They involve numeric size, power/status, and counternormative position, but size is most commonly used in experimental research to manipulate minority/minority status. Does this practice mirror real-world conceptualizations? To address this question, 77 participants were asked to describe majority and minority groups using a structured openended measure. Content analysis of their responses revealed that majority and minority groups were conceptualized along eight dimensions, which included power, number, distinctiveness, social category, group context, dispositions, and being the source or target of behavior. Although these dimensions were relevant to both majorities and minorities, they often were applied differentially. Also, minorities were associated with more divergent thinking and viewed more negatively than were majorities. On the basis of these findings, a new typology of groups was proposed that could be used in future experimental research to advance our understanding of majorities and minorities.

A return to Deleuze and Guattari's famous figure of the rhizome, this paper turns the philosophical idea around by asking what we might learn, from their openended exposition of it, about plants. The account at once reduces the rhizome to its cultivated varieties and enlarges the notion of a plant by the people joined to it. A stimulus comes from the recent World Heritage designation of a site in Mt Hagen, Papua New Guinea, for its evidence of the prehistoric cultivation of plants preferentially propagated by vegetative means. Following Haudricourt's early exposition of the yam and the implications of cloning as a way of life (as well as a way of thought), the paper elaborates on what is indissolubly tied to the rhizome as a cultivated plant, people's actions. Rhizomic plants are well described as multiplicities. Some questions are asked about the nature of diverse contrasts that are or are not implied. The burden of ethnographic demonstration is with the Papua New Guinean material; the provisional nature of the rest will be apparent.

Based on hypothetical responses originating from a large-scale survey among about 6,000 German households, this study investigates the discrepancy in willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for green electricity across single-binary-choice and open-ended valuation formats. Recognizing that respondents self-select into two groups distinguished by their belief in their answers' consequences for policy making, we employ a switching regression model that accounts for the potential endogeneity of respondents' belief in consequences and, hence, biases from sample selectivity. Contrasting with the received literature, we find WTP bids that tend to be higher among those respondents who obtained questions in the openended format, rather than single-binary-choice questions. This difference substantially shrinks, however, when focusing on individuals who perceive the survey as politically consequential. ; Auf der Grundlage hypothetischer Antworten aus einer groß angelegten Umfrage unter rund 6.000 deutschen Haushalten, untersucht diese Studie die Diskrepanz der Zahlungsbereitschafts-Schätzungen für grünen Strom zwischen Single-Binary-Choice und Open-Ended Bewertungsformaten. Wir nutzen hierbei aus, dass die Befragten sich selbst in zwei Gruppen selektieren, die sich durch ihren Glauben an die Konsequenzen ihrer Antworten für die Politikgestaltung unterscheiden. Auf dieser Basis schätzen wir ein Switching-Regression-Modell, das die potenzielle Endogenität dieser Erwartungshaltung der Befragten an die Konsequenzen und damit Verzerrungen der Stichprobenselektivität berücksichtigt. Im Gegensatz zur bisherigen Literatur finden wir tendenziell eher höhere Zahlungsbereitschaften, bei den Befragten, die Fragen im Open-Ended Format erhalten haben, im Vergleich zu den Befragten, die die Single-Binary-Choice Fragen beantwortet haben. Dieser Unterschied schrumpft jedoch erheblich, wenn man sich auf Personen beschränkt, die die an die politische Konsequenz der Umfrage glauben.

Mixed-mode surveys allow researchers to combine the advantages of multiple modes, for example, the low cost of the web mode with the higher coverage of offline modes. One drawback of combining modes is that there might be systematic differences in measurement across modes. Thus, it would be useful to know which measurement methods work best in all employed modes. This study sets out to find a method that results in the highest measurement quality across self-administered web mode questionnaires (web mode) and self-administered paper questionnaires sent out by mail (mail mode). Two Multitrait-Multimethod (MTMM) experiments employing questions on environmental attitudes and supernatural beliefs were implemented in the GESIS Panel, a probability-based panel in Germany. The experiments were designed to estimate the measurement quality of three different response scales: A seven-point fully labelled scale, a 101-point numerical openended scale and an eleven-point partially labelled scale. Our results show that the elevenpoint partially labelled scale consistently leads to the highest measurement quality across both modes. We thus recommend using eleven-point partially labelled scales when measuring attitudes or beliefs in mixed-mode surveys combining web and mail mode.

Certain outcomes from local Sch's can lead to grievances among the students' parents. A grievance is a feeling of having been wronged or deprived of due outcomes. To the extent that pol is concerned with the development, nature, prosecution, & manag of grievances, the Sch community provides an apt subject of study. Key questions hinge on the interrelationships of grievances & SP participation, the substance of grievances, & the redress of grievances. A nat'l sample of 1,992 parents of US HSch seniors was interviewed in the Spr of 1965. Openended & closed ended questions were employed. Grievancebearing R's were those having been upset by (1) something their child had been told in class or by (2) some other event at Sch. These are further subdivided into those seeking redress & the manner in which redress was attempted. A test is made of whether minority status acts as a constraint on redress attempts. Contingency tables & gamma is are used to display the data. Popular impressions notwithstanding, grievances against HSch's are not rampant, nor are they excessively clustered among certain SP strata. If anything, the more participative, politicized parents are more likely to harbor grievances than their opposites. Parental grievances develop in the context of rather deeply-held value commitments; & objections to classroom content focus on religion-morals-pol themes whereas objections about other matters center more on the Sch as a soc system. Less than a majority of grievances are transformed into demands through compensatory action & of such actions a bare fraction reach the stage of public visibility. Perhaps the most theoretically intriguing finding is that the parent's position with respect to majority groupings in the Sch community appears to play a strong role in determining whether grievances will be converted into demands. AA.

A survey of the reactions of some Me Africans to their position in South Africa (SA) conducted in 1961 & financed largely by the SA Instit of Race Relations. Detailed interviews, an openended E1, 2 SD scales, & a TAT were admin'ed to the sample (N=150) in the Witwatersrand area, who are broken down as follows: 42 clerical workers, 27 teachers, 16 SA US's, 24 S's at a Coll in Basutoland, 25 Sch boys, 17 ministers of religion, 7 journalists & 2 lawyers. Available evidence confirmed by the '?I suggests that Mc Africans experience little conflict in accepting western values as the basis for conduct in Ur society. Acceptance of tribal heritage as a basis for behavior & level of educ are -r'ed. 70% stressed educ as a major life goal, with `proper' educ favored over Bantu educ. Preoccup with material benefits, greater security & human rights seem to stem from contact with western norms & present position in society. The State & its agents are seen as the major source of insecurity, reinforced by the att's & prejudices of the Eur pop & the insecurities of rapid transition to indust'ized society. 38% admitted to having been arrested at least once in their lives. 30% had suffered from fam disruption, & severe financial insufficiency in the fam. 59% claimed to be optimistic about their future, but this was often contradicted by responses to the TAT. 64% attended Church regularly & would appear to find strong support in Christian faith. 31% were reasonably satisfied with their work & prospects; this % is low in view of the MC composition of the sample. 41% gave favorable (5%) or ambivalent (36%) responses to questions on att's to Europeans. Econ & soc integration are seen as very important problems. It is assessed that the present functioning of the SA system is `repressive in a way which cannot be justified.' The PO L91 is reproduced. M. Farber.