Skip sequencing: A decision problem in questionnaire design

DOI10.1214/07-AOAS134MaRDI QIDQ2482978zbMATH OpenWikidataFDO

Authors Charles F. Manski, Francesca Molinari

Publication date 30 April 2008

Published in The Annals of Applied Statistics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0803.3875

zbMATH Keywords

item nonresponsepartial identificationresponse error

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistical decision theory (62C99) Sampling theory, sample surveys (62D05)

Abstract: This paper studies questionnaire design as a formal decision problem, focusing on one element of the design process: skip sequencing. We propose that a survey planner use an explicit loss function to quantify the trade-off between cost and informativeness of the survey and aim to make a design choice that minimizes loss. We pose a choice between three options: ask all respondents about an item of interest, use skip sequencing, thereby asking the item only of respondents who give a certain answer to an opening question, or do not ask the item at all. The first option is most informative but also most costly. The use of skip sequencing reduces respondent burden and the cost of interviewing, but may spread data quality problems across survey items, thereby reducing informativeness. The last option has no cost but is completely uninformative about the item of interest. We show how the planner may choose among these three options in the presence of two inferential problems, item nonresponse and response error.

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Cited in

(6)

• Questionnaire design improvement and missing item scores estimation for rapid and efficient decision making
• Split questionnaire designs: collecting only the data that you need through MCAR and MAR designs
• Efficiency of split questionnaire surveys
• Multiple imputation of missing data with skip-pattern covariates: a comparison of alternative strategies
• Markov conditions and factorization in logical credal networks
• Optimization of binary questionnaires containing variable-price questions

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