Apologies for cross postings
Help!
Could anybody suggest an article/literature/approach/person that would help
with the following problem:
"What methods are available to ensure that respondents to questions
involving complex and unfamiliar concepts give 'serious' thought to the
subject matter before answering the question?"
The context of this problem is as follows:
We are validating an instrument to measure health related quality of life.
We are asking respondents how many years of healthy life they would give up
to avoid being in a particular (unpleasant) health state (there is a big
literature using this approach - the time-trade off). This involves
respondents being asked to conceptualise a range of health states that they
will be unfamiliar with. Our concern is that spontaneous responses to
questions may not be a true indicator of what a person would actually do if
they faced the choice in reality. Our gold standard would be to develop an
approach where respondents' answers to questions would reflect the number
of healthy years that the person actually would give up if they actually
faced the choice of entering the unpleasant health state or shortening
their life.
Note the types of issues we are trying to explore go beyond the literature
on framing effects in surveys and interviews. Our interest lies primarily
in methods to improve respondents understanding of complex and largely
unfamiliar concepts to attempt to increase the realism of their responses
to questions. Examples of approaches for achieving this may include:
· Asking questions in different ways and point out inconsistencies.
· Use alternative multimedia formats for questions.
· Show respondents a video where issues are explained/debated etc.
· Bring together respondents into a discussion group to explore concepts.
· Repeat questioning after a period of time for deliberation/contemplation
by individuals.
These are only illustrations of the sorts of approaches we would consider.
We would be very grateful for any suggestions.
Thank you in advance.
Dr Stuart Peacock
Health Economics Unit
Monash University
Melbourne, Australia
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