Thanks to Kit Baum, the module – respdiff – is now available for download from SSC.
Research in survey methodology has provided ample evidence that survey respondents differ in the extent to which they differentiate their answers to survey questions (Krosnick 1991). With respect to this finding, the theory of survey satisficing proposes that under certain conditions respondents might select a somehow reasonable response option for the first item in a set of survey question items, and rate all (or almost all) remaining items with the exactly same response value (Krosnick 1991). In survey methodology, this response pattern is usually referred to as response non-differentiation (e.g., Krosnick and Alwin 1988, Krosnick 1991) or straightlining (e.g., Couper et al. 2013).
The respdiff command enables Stata users to generate several indices of response differentiation for each row r of the data set (e.g. respondents) over the n variables in varlist (e.g. survey questions), ignoring missing values (i.e., system missing values and numeric values that have been changed to missing values using the mvdecode command). While one function creates a binary indicator for non-differentiated responses, the remaining functions (e.g., the standard deviation of responses and the coefficient of variation) provide measures of the extent to which each respondent provided differentiated responses to a user-defined set of survey questions.
The respdiff module should be installed from within Stata by typing “ssc install respdiff”. It requires Stata version 12.1.
References
Couper, M. P., Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F. G., & Zhang, C. (2013). The Design of Grids in Web Surveys. Social Science Computer Review, 31(3), 322-345.
Krosnick, J. A. (1991). Response Strategies for Coping with the Cognitive Demands of Attitude Measures in Surveys. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5(3), 213-236.
Krosnick, J. A., & Alwin, D. F. (1988). A Test of the Form-Resistant Correlation Hypothesis. Ratings, Rankings, and the Measurement of Values. Public Opinion Quarterly, 52(4), 526-538.
Best wishes
Joss
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Joss Roßmann
GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
Research in survey methodology has provided ample evidence that survey respondents differ in the extent to which they differentiate their answers to survey questions (Krosnick 1991). With respect to this finding, the theory of survey satisficing proposes that under certain conditions respondents might select a somehow reasonable response option for the first item in a set of survey question items, and rate all (or almost all) remaining items with the exactly same response value (Krosnick 1991). In survey methodology, this response pattern is usually referred to as response non-differentiation (e.g., Krosnick and Alwin 1988, Krosnick 1991) or straightlining (e.g., Couper et al. 2013).
The respdiff command enables Stata users to generate several indices of response differentiation for each row r of the data set (e.g. respondents) over the n variables in varlist (e.g. survey questions), ignoring missing values (i.e., system missing values and numeric values that have been changed to missing values using the mvdecode command). While one function creates a binary indicator for non-differentiated responses, the remaining functions (e.g., the standard deviation of responses and the coefficient of variation) provide measures of the extent to which each respondent provided differentiated responses to a user-defined set of survey questions.
The respdiff module should be installed from within Stata by typing “ssc install respdiff”. It requires Stata version 12.1.
References
Couper, M. P., Tourangeau, R., Conrad, F. G., & Zhang, C. (2013). The Design of Grids in Web Surveys. Social Science Computer Review, 31(3), 322-345.
Krosnick, J. A. (1991). Response Strategies for Coping with the Cognitive Demands of Attitude Measures in Surveys. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 5(3), 213-236.
Krosnick, J. A., & Alwin, D. F. (1988). A Test of the Form-Resistant Correlation Hypothesis. Ratings, Rankings, and the Measurement of Values. Public Opinion Quarterly, 52(4), 526-538.
Best wishes
Joss
---
Joss Roßmann
GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
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