Attitude Measurement Vol. - II: Designing Direct Measures

VOLUME 2: DESIGNING DIRECT MEASURES Open versus closed questions Strong arguments and weak evidence: The openosed questioning controversy of the 1940s The wording of questions Experiments in wording opinion questions Three-point Likert scales are good enough Are three-point scales always good enough? The relationship between number of response categories and reliability of Likert-type questionnaires The optimal number of response alternatives for a scale: A review Feeling thermometers versus 7-point scales: Which are better? How often is often? Often is where you find it Vague quantifiers Extreme response on a Likert scale "Don't know": Item ambiguity or respondent uncertainty? Decisions about ignorance: Knowing that you don't know "No-opinion" filters: A cognitive perspective Should we take don't know for an answer? The impact of no opinion response options on data quality: Non-attitude reduction or an invitation to satisfice? Response alternatives: The impact of their choice and presentation order. The effect of ordinal position upon responses to items in a checklist The effects of offering a middle response option with opinion questions The middlemost choice on attitude items: Ambivalence, neutrality, or uncertainty Experiments with the middle response alternative in survey questions The measurement of attitudes The retrospective question