EFFECT OF QUESTION ORDER ON SENSORY PERCEPTION AND PREFERENCE IN CENTRAL LOCATION TRIALS

In the running of consumer studies aimed at obtaining information abou t products and services, it has become increasingly popular to include some sensory type questions about the characteristics of the test pro duct as well as the standard question about overall preference. The im plications of this for the resultant data are complex, and as Sudman a nd Schwarz (1989) point out question order effects have been implicate d as one of the major causes of unreplicated or unexpected findings in survey research. This study aims to establish the effect of question order on overall preference scores and sensory scores in consumer stud ies. Results indicate that there is a significant effect of asking sen sory questions on overall preference ratings and the position of the p reference questions (relative to the sensory questions) also has impli cations for overall ratings of preference.